 |
| Virginia Tech Review Panel Chairman Gerald Massengill, right, gestures during opening remarks at the panel's first meeting.
(Steve Helber/The Virginian-Pilot ) |
By Warren Fiske
The Virginian-Pilot
RICHMOND - A gubernatorial commission investigating the April 16 shootings at Virginia Tech began work Thursday with many members pondering how gunman Seung-Hui Cho evaded a judge's order to receive mental counseling in 2005.
"We need to look into what changes need to be made to our commitment process," said Diane Strickland, a retired Roanoke circuit judge. "Who gets committed? How long? What are the terms for release in the community? Who monitors them? How do we know they are taking their medications?"
Members offered favorable first impressions of the police and emergency medical response on the day Cho killed 32 students and staff at Virginia Tech before committing suicide.
Gerald Massengill, a retired Virginia State Police superintendent and chairman of the commission, said campus police took 3 minutes to respond to West Ambler Johnston dormitory after Cho killed a man and woman there around 7:15 a.m.
He said it took police 8 minutes to get to Norris Hall, where the shooting spree continued, break through chains that Cho put inside the doors and reach the second floor, where Cho killed 30 people around 9:45 a.m.
Massengill told Virginia Tech President Charles Steger, who attended part of the meeting, he had "every reason to be quite proud" of the campus police response.
Emergency medical personnel also were commended for helping to save the lives of the wounded, who were rushed to hospitals on a day that was too windy to use helicopters.
The commission also will review the 2-1/2-hour gap between the shootings in the dorm and those in Norris Hall. Virginia Tech officials did not lock down the campus during the interval because they thought the dorm shootings were an isolated incident.
The panel should review how students are notified of life-threatening situations on campuses, said Marcus Martin, assistant dean for the School of Medicine at the University of Virginia and a professor of emergency medicine.
"Some of my colleagues say that maybe we have to go back to an old-fashioned alarm system," he said.
One panel member suggested that students should be better prepared to defend themselves.
"Perhaps we need to train students... that if there is an attack of this magnitude, there's certainly an opportunity to confront the attacker," said Roger L. Depue, a former administrator at the FBI National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime.
Gov. Timothy M. Kaine appointed the eight-member commission last month. In a brief speech at the start of Thursday's meeting, Kaine urged the panel to "proceed with a sense of urgency because Virginians have questions that are urgent."
The governor said he hopes the commission will produce a report on the shootings and make recommendations to enhance college safety before the start of the fall semester.
Kaine charged the commission with finding out "everything we can" about Cho; establishing a "minute-by-minute" timeline of events on April 16; and assessing the response by Tech officials, law enforcement officers, emergency medical workers and hospitals.
Massengill said mental health issues "are going to take up considerable time on this panel." Several members said the commission should explore whether the state is providing enough money for mental health services.
A judge ordered Cho to get out patient counseling in late 2005 after deciding the student was mentally ill and an "imminent danger" to himself. There is no evidence that Cho complied.
Because Cho was not committed to an institution, county court officials did not report the matter to State Police and his name was not entered into a database that provides background checks of gun buyers. Cho was able to buy the two handguns used in the shootings by falsely stating on state gun purchase forms that he had never been ruled "mentally defective."
Kaine last week signed an executive order mandating that the names of all Virginians required by a court to receive mental health treatment be turned over to State Police for inclusion on a database of people prohibited from buying guns.
On the panel's Web site, www.vtreviewpanel.org, the public can make recommendations and review the commission's activities.
Delicious
Digg
Reddit
Facebook
Google
Yahoo
If they don't look into gun contol
this panel is a waste of time. Over and over I say there is no legal need for anyone to be able to purchase a gun in Virginia every 30 days. I don't care who they are. There are too many illegal guns on the street. Well, they had to come from somewhere. So what is it, were they stolen, or purchased legally and then sold illegally?
I wish the university would pioneer studies of the paternal ag
It would help the nation if Virginia Tech students studied the cause of the mental illness that afflicted the gunman so that none of them, later in life had an autistic child through the ignorance of the workings of the male biological clock.
Here is a short paper with some sources that should be studied by those at Virginia Tech who want to prevent the births of more very disturbed people . EBD blog: Father's Age as a Contributor to Risk of Autism