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http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2007/4/18/130512.shtml?s=lh
Va. Tech Shooter Was Suicidal, Stalker
NewsMax.com Wires Wednesday, April 18, 2007
The gunman blamed for the deadliest shooting in modern U.S. history had
previously been accused of stalking two female students at Virginia Tech and
had been taken to a mental health facility in 2005 after an acquaintance
worried he might be suicidal, police said Wednesday.
Cho Seung-Hui had concerned one woman enough with his calls and e-mail in
2005 that police were called in, said Police Chief Wendell Flinchum.
He said the woman declined to press charges, and neither woman was among the
victims of Monday's massacre on the Virginia Tech campus.
During the stalking second incident, also in late 2005, the department
received a call from an acquaintance of Cho's who was concerned that he
might be suicidal, and Cho was taken to a mental health facility, Flinchum
said. About the same time, in fall 2005, Cho's professor informally shared
some concerns about the young man's writing but no official report was
filed, he said.
Flinchum said he knew of no other police incidents involving Cho until the
deadly shootings Monday, first at a girl's dorm room and then a classroom
building across campus. Neither of the stalking victims was among the
victims Monday.
Thirty-two people were shot to death before the gunman killed himself. State
Police have said the same gun was used in both shootings, but they said
Wednesday said they still weren't confident that it was the same gunman.
Campus police on Wednesday applied for search warrants for all of Cho's
medical records from the Schiffert Health Center on campus and New River
Community Services in Blacksburg.
"It is reasonable to believe that the medical records may provide evidence
of motive, intent and designs," investigators wrote in the documents.
Police searched Cho's dorm room on Tuesday and recovered, among other items,
two computers, books, notebooks, a digital camera, and a chain and
combination lock, according to documents filed Wednesday; the front doors of
Norris Hall had been chained shut from the inside during the shooting
rampage.
Cho's roommates and professors on Wednesday described him as a troubled,
very quiet young man who rarely spoke to his roommates or made eye contact
with them.
His bizarre behavior became even less predictable in recent weeks, roommates
Joseph Aust and Karan Grewal said.
Grewal had pulled an all-nighter on homework the day of the shootings and
saw Cho at around 5 a.m.
"He didn't look me in the eye. Same old thing. I left him alone," He told
CNN. He said when he saw Cho that morning and during the weekend, Cho didn't
smile, didn't frown and didn't show any signs of anger. Grewal also said he
never saw any weapons.
Several students and professors described Cho as a sullen loner. Authorities
said he left a rambling note raging against women and rich kids. News
reports said that Cho, a 23-year-old senior majoring in English, may have
been taking medication for depression and that he was becoming increasingly
erratic.
Professors and classmates were alarmed by his class writings - pages filled
with twisted, violence-drenched writing.
"It was not bad poetry. It was intimidating," poet Nikki Giovanni, one of
his professors, told CNN Wednesday.
"I know we're talking about a youngster, but troubled youngsters get drunk
and jump off buildings," she said. "There was something mean about this boy.
It was the meanness - I've taught troubled youngsters and crazy people _ it
was the meanness that bothered me. It was a really mean streak."
Giovanni said her students were so unnerved by Cho's behavior, including
taking pictures of them with his cell phone, that some stopped coming to
class and she had security check on her room. She eventually had him taken
out of her class, saying she would quit if he wasn't removed.
Lucinda Roy, a co-director of creative writing at Virginia Tech, said she
tutored Cho after that.
"He was so distant and so lonely," she told ABC's "Good Morning America"
Wednesday. "It was almost like talking to a hole, as though he wasn't there
most of the time. He wore sunglasses and his hat very low so it was hard to
see his face."
Roy also described using a code word with her assistant to call police if
she ever felt threatened by Cho, but she said she never used it.
Cho's writing was so disturbing, though, he was referred to the university's
counseling service, said Carolyn Rude, chairwoman of the university's
English department.
In screenplays Cho wrote for a class last fall, characters throw hammers and
attack with chainsaws, said a student who attended Virginia Tech last fall.
In another, Cho concocted a tale of students who fantasize about stalking
and killing a teacher who sexually molested them.
"When we read Cho's plays, it was like something out of a nightmare," former
classmate Ian MacFarlane, now an AOL employee, wrote in a blog posted on an
AOL Web site.
"The plays had really twisted, macabre violence that used weapons I wouldn't
have even thought of."
He said he and other students "were talking to each other with serious worry
about whether he could be a school shooter."
"We always joked we were just waiting for him to do something, waiting to
hear about something he did," said another classmate, Stephanie Derry. "But
when I got the call it was Cho who had done this, I started crying,
bawling."
Despite the many warning signs that came to light in the bloody aftermath,
police and university officials offered no clues as to exactly what set Cho
off.
Cho - who arrived in the United States as boy from South Korea in 1992 and
was raised in suburban Washington, D.C., where his parents worked at a dry
cleaners - left a note that was found after the bloodbath.
A law enforcement official described it Tuesday as a typed, eight-page rant
against rich kids and religion. The official spoke on condition of anonymity
because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
"You caused me to do this," the official quoted the note as saying.
Cho indicated in his letter that the end was near and that there was a deed
to be done, the official said. He also expressed disappointment in his own
religion, and made several references to Christianity, the official said.
The official said the letter was either found in Cho's dorm room or in his
backpack. The backpack was found in the hallway of the classroom building
where the shootings happened, and contained several rounds of ammunition,
the official said.
Eight wounded students remain hospitalized Wednesday at Montgomery Regional
Hospital, which took in 17 people after the shootings, CEO Scott Hill said
in a news conference with Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine.
"The students are doing generally well," Kaine said after visiting with
them. "Some of them walked for the first time today."
The governor said some students had had life-threatening injuries. One young
man knew enough from being in Boy Scouts to put a finger in the wound in his
leg to limit the bleeding and tie it off with electrical tape, Kaine said.
He said doctors told him that probably saved the student's life.
Five other victims were hospitalized in two other medical centers in either
good or serious condition.
Monday's rampage consisted of two attacks, more than two hours apart - first
at a dormitory, where two people were killed, then inside a classroom
building, where 31 people, including Cho, died. Two handguns - a 9 mm and a
..22-caliber - were found in the classroom building.
According to court papers, police found a "bomb threat" note _ directed at
engineering school buildings - near the victims in the classroom building.
In the past three weeks, Virginia Tech was hit with two other bomb threats.
Investigators have not connected those earlier threats to Cho.
Cho graduated from Westfield High School in Chantilly, Va., in 2003. His
family lived in an off-white, two-story townhouse in Centreville, Va.
At least one of those killed in the rampage, Reema Samaha, graduated from
Westfield High in 2006. But there was no immediate word from authorities on
whether Cho knew the young woman and singled her out.
"He was very quiet, always by himself," neighbor Abdul Shash said. Shash
said Cho spent a lot of his free time playing basketball and would not
respond if someone greeted him.
Some classmates said that on the first day of a British literature class
last year, the 30 or so students went around and introduced themselves. When
it was Cho's turn, he didn't speak.
On the sign-in sheet where everyone else had written their names, Cho had
written a question mark. "Is your name, 'Question mark?"' classmate Julie
Poole recalled the professor asking. The young man offered little response.
Cho spent much of that class sitting in the back of the room, wearing a hat
and seldom participating. In a small department, Cho distinguished himself
for being anonymous. "He didn't reach out to anyone. He never talked," Poole
said.
"We just really knew him as the question mark kid," Poole said.
One law enforcement official said Cho's backpack contained a receipt for a
March purchase of a Glock 9 mm pistol. Cho held a green card, meaning he was
a legal, permanent resident. That meant he was eligible to buy a handgun
unless he had been convicted of a felony.
Tuesday night, thousands of Virginia Tech students, faculty and area
residents poured into the center of campus to grieve together. Volunteers
passed out thousands of candles in paper cups, donated from around the
country. Then, as the flames flickered, speakers urged them to find solace
in one another.
As silence spread across the grassy bowl of the drill field, a pair of
trumpets began to play taps. A few in the crowd began to sing Amazing Grace.
Afterward, students, some weeping, others holding each other for support,
gathered around makeshift memorials, filling banners and plywood boards with
messages belying their pain. With classes canceled for the rest of the week,
many students left town.
"I think this is something that will take a while. It still hasn't hit a lot
of people yet," said Amber McGee, a freshman from Wytheville, Va.
Kaine said he would appoint a panel at the university's request to review
authorities' handling of the disaster. Parents and students had complained
that the university should have locked down the campus immediately after the
first burst of gunfire and did not do enough to warn people.
"I'm satisfied that the university did everything they felt they needed to
do with the heat on the table," Kaine told CBS' "The Early Show" on
Wednesday. "Nobody has this in the playbook, there's no manual on this."
Congress planned to hold its first hearing on the shootings Thursday,
focusing on law enforcement resources needed to protect the country.
Virginia Tech students got another scare Wednesday morning as police in SWAT
gear with weapons drawn swarmed Burruss Hall, which houses the president's
office.
"They were just screaming, 'Get off the sidewalks,"' said Terryn
Wingler-Petty, a junior from Wisconsin. "They seemed very confused about
what was going on. They were just trying to get people organized."
The threat targeted the university president but was unfounded and the
building was reopened, Flinchum said.
One officer was seen escorting a crying young woman out of Burruss Hall,
telling her, "It's OK. It's OK."
Va. Tech Shooter Was Suicidal, Stalker
NewsMax.com Wires Wednesday, April 18, 2007
The gunman blamed for the deadliest shooting in modern U.S. history had
previously been accused of stalking two female students at Virginia Tech and
had been taken to a mental health facility in 2005 after an acquaintance
worried he might be suicidal, police said Wednesday.
Cho Seung-Hui had concerned one woman enough with his calls and e-mail in
2005 that police were called in, said Police Chief Wendell Flinchum.
He said the woman declined to press charges, and neither woman was among the
victims of Monday's massacre on the Virginia Tech campus.
During the stalking second incident, also in late 2005, the department
received a call from an acquaintance of Cho's who was concerned that he
might be suicidal, and Cho was taken to a mental health facility, Flinchum
said. About the same time, in fall 2005, Cho's professor informally shared
some concerns about the young man's writing but no official report was
filed, he said.
Flinchum said he knew of no other police incidents involving Cho until the
deadly shootings Monday, first at a girl's dorm room and then a classroom
building across campus. Neither of the stalking victims was among the
victims Monday.
Thirty-two people were shot to death before the gunman killed himself. State
Police have said the same gun was used in both shootings, but they said
Wednesday said they still weren't confident that it was the same gunman.
Campus police on Wednesday applied for search warrants for all of Cho's
medical records from the Schiffert Health Center on campus and New River
Community Services in Blacksburg.
"It is reasonable to believe that the medical records may provide evidence
of motive, intent and designs," investigators wrote in the documents.
Police searched Cho's dorm room on Tuesday and recovered, among other items,
two computers, books, notebooks, a digital camera, and a chain and
combination lock, according to documents filed Wednesday; the front doors of
Norris Hall had been chained shut from the inside during the shooting
rampage.
Cho's roommates and professors on Wednesday described him as a troubled,
very quiet young man who rarely spoke to his roommates or made eye contact
with them.
His bizarre behavior became even less predictable in recent weeks, roommates
Joseph Aust and Karan Grewal said.
Grewal had pulled an all-nighter on homework the day of the shootings and
saw Cho at around 5 a.m.
"He didn't look me in the eye. Same old thing. I left him alone," He told
CNN. He said when he saw Cho that morning and during the weekend, Cho didn't
smile, didn't frown and didn't show any signs of anger. Grewal also said he
never saw any weapons.
Several students and professors described Cho as a sullen loner. Authorities
said he left a rambling note raging against women and rich kids. News
reports said that Cho, a 23-year-old senior majoring in English, may have
been taking medication for depression and that he was becoming increasingly
erratic.
Professors and classmates were alarmed by his class writings - pages filled
with twisted, violence-drenched writing.
"It was not bad poetry. It was intimidating," poet Nikki Giovanni, one of
his professors, told CNN Wednesday.
"I know we're talking about a youngster, but troubled youngsters get drunk
and jump off buildings," she said. "There was something mean about this boy.
It was the meanness - I've taught troubled youngsters and crazy people _ it
was the meanness that bothered me. It was a really mean streak."
Giovanni said her students were so unnerved by Cho's behavior, including
taking pictures of them with his cell phone, that some stopped coming to
class and she had security check on her room. She eventually had him taken
out of her class, saying she would quit if he wasn't removed.
Lucinda Roy, a co-director of creative writing at Virginia Tech, said she
tutored Cho after that.
"He was so distant and so lonely," she told ABC's "Good Morning America"
Wednesday. "It was almost like talking to a hole, as though he wasn't there
most of the time. He wore sunglasses and his hat very low so it was hard to
see his face."
Roy also described using a code word with her assistant to call police if
she ever felt threatened by Cho, but she said she never used it.
Cho's writing was so disturbing, though, he was referred to the university's
counseling service, said Carolyn Rude, chairwoman of the university's
English department.
In screenplays Cho wrote for a class last fall, characters throw hammers and
attack with chainsaws, said a student who attended Virginia Tech last fall.
In another, Cho concocted a tale of students who fantasize about stalking
and killing a teacher who sexually molested them.
"When we read Cho's plays, it was like something out of a nightmare," former
classmate Ian MacFarlane, now an AOL employee, wrote in a blog posted on an
AOL Web site.
"The plays had really twisted, macabre violence that used weapons I wouldn't
have even thought of."
He said he and other students "were talking to each other with serious worry
about whether he could be a school shooter."
"We always joked we were just waiting for him to do something, waiting to
hear about something he did," said another classmate, Stephanie Derry. "But
when I got the call it was Cho who had done this, I started crying,
bawling."
Despite the many warning signs that came to light in the bloody aftermath,
police and university officials offered no clues as to exactly what set Cho
off.
Cho - who arrived in the United States as boy from South Korea in 1992 and
was raised in suburban Washington, D.C., where his parents worked at a dry
cleaners - left a note that was found after the bloodbath.
A law enforcement official described it Tuesday as a typed, eight-page rant
against rich kids and religion. The official spoke on condition of anonymity
because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
"You caused me to do this," the official quoted the note as saying.
Cho indicated in his letter that the end was near and that there was a deed
to be done, the official said. He also expressed disappointment in his own
religion, and made several references to Christianity, the official said.
The official said the letter was either found in Cho's dorm room or in his
backpack. The backpack was found in the hallway of the classroom building
where the shootings happened, and contained several rounds of ammunition,
the official said.
Eight wounded students remain hospitalized Wednesday at Montgomery Regional
Hospital, which took in 17 people after the shootings, CEO Scott Hill said
in a news conference with Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine.
"The students are doing generally well," Kaine said after visiting with
them. "Some of them walked for the first time today."
The governor said some students had had life-threatening injuries. One young
man knew enough from being in Boy Scouts to put a finger in the wound in his
leg to limit the bleeding and tie it off with electrical tape, Kaine said.
He said doctors told him that probably saved the student's life.
Five other victims were hospitalized in two other medical centers in either
good or serious condition.
Monday's rampage consisted of two attacks, more than two hours apart - first
at a dormitory, where two people were killed, then inside a classroom
building, where 31 people, including Cho, died. Two handguns - a 9 mm and a
..22-caliber - were found in the classroom building.
According to court papers, police found a "bomb threat" note _ directed at
engineering school buildings - near the victims in the classroom building.
In the past three weeks, Virginia Tech was hit with two other bomb threats.
Investigators have not connected those earlier threats to Cho.
Cho graduated from Westfield High School in Chantilly, Va., in 2003. His
family lived in an off-white, two-story townhouse in Centreville, Va.
At least one of those killed in the rampage, Reema Samaha, graduated from
Westfield High in 2006. But there was no immediate word from authorities on
whether Cho knew the young woman and singled her out.
"He was very quiet, always by himself," neighbor Abdul Shash said. Shash
said Cho spent a lot of his free time playing basketball and would not
respond if someone greeted him.
Some classmates said that on the first day of a British literature class
last year, the 30 or so students went around and introduced themselves. When
it was Cho's turn, he didn't speak.
On the sign-in sheet where everyone else had written their names, Cho had
written a question mark. "Is your name, 'Question mark?"' classmate Julie
Poole recalled the professor asking. The young man offered little response.
Cho spent much of that class sitting in the back of the room, wearing a hat
and seldom participating. In a small department, Cho distinguished himself
for being anonymous. "He didn't reach out to anyone. He never talked," Poole
said.
"We just really knew him as the question mark kid," Poole said.
One law enforcement official said Cho's backpack contained a receipt for a
March purchase of a Glock 9 mm pistol. Cho held a green card, meaning he was
a legal, permanent resident. That meant he was eligible to buy a handgun
unless he had been convicted of a felony.
Tuesday night, thousands of Virginia Tech students, faculty and area
residents poured into the center of campus to grieve together. Volunteers
passed out thousands of candles in paper cups, donated from around the
country. Then, as the flames flickered, speakers urged them to find solace
in one another.
As silence spread across the grassy bowl of the drill field, a pair of
trumpets began to play taps. A few in the crowd began to sing Amazing Grace.
Afterward, students, some weeping, others holding each other for support,
gathered around makeshift memorials, filling banners and plywood boards with
messages belying their pain. With classes canceled for the rest of the week,
many students left town.
"I think this is something that will take a while. It still hasn't hit a lot
of people yet," said Amber McGee, a freshman from Wytheville, Va.
Kaine said he would appoint a panel at the university's request to review
authorities' handling of the disaster. Parents and students had complained
that the university should have locked down the campus immediately after the
first burst of gunfire and did not do enough to warn people.
"I'm satisfied that the university did everything they felt they needed to
do with the heat on the table," Kaine told CBS' "The Early Show" on
Wednesday. "Nobody has this in the playbook, there's no manual on this."
Congress planned to hold its first hearing on the shootings Thursday,
focusing on law enforcement resources needed to protect the country.
Virginia Tech students got another scare Wednesday morning as police in SWAT
gear with weapons drawn swarmed Burruss Hall, which houses the president's
office.
"They were just screaming, 'Get off the sidewalks,"' said Terryn
Wingler-Petty, a junior from Wisconsin. "They seemed very confused about
what was going on. They were just trying to get people organized."
The threat targeted the university president but was unfounded and the
building was reopened, Flinchum said.
One officer was seen escorting a crying young woman out of Burruss Hall,
telling her, "It's OK. It's OK."
