Panel reports Va. Tech officials could have done more
Virginia Tech president Charles W. Steger, left, Larry Hinker, center, associate vice president of University Relations and Virginia Tech Provost, Mark McNamee, right, answer questions from the media at a news conference in Blacksburg, Va., Thursday Aug.3 Don Petersen, The Associated Press
August 31, 2007
RICHMOND, Va. – Virginia Tech officials could have saved lives if they had quickly warned the campus that two students had been shot to death and a killer was on the loose, a panel that investigated the attacks said Thursday.
Instead, it took administrators more than two hours to get out an e-mail warning students and staff to be cautious. The shooter had time to leave the dormitory where the first two victims were killed, mail a letter, and then enter a classroom building, chain the doors shut and kill 31 more people, including himself.
Even before the killings, the university had failed to properly care for the mentally troubled student gunman, Seung-Hui Cho, the panel found.
One victim’s mother on Thursday urged Gov. Timothy M. Kaine to “show some leadership” and fire the university’s president and campus police chief for their lack of action during the April 16 attack. Others demanded accountability for errors that were made.
Kaine, however, told The Associated Press the school’s officials had suffered enough without losing their jobs.
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“This is not something where the university officials, faculty, administrators have just been very blithe. There has been deep grieving about this, and it’s torn the campus up,” Kaine said. “If I thought firings would be the way to do that, then that would be what I would focus on.”
Kaine said he wanted to focus instead on fixing the problem. After formally accepting the report, he said parents of troubled children who are starting college should alert university officials, and those officials should “pick up the phone and call the parent” if they become aware of unusual behavior.
“The information needs to flow both ways,” the governor said.
An eight-member panel appointed by Kaine spent four months investigating the worst mass shooting in modern U.S. history and issued its report late Wednesday.
“Warning the students, faculty and staff might have made a difference,” the panel. “So the earlier and clearer the warning, the more chance an individual had of surviving.”
Associated Press writers Dena Potter, Bob Lewis and Vicki Smith contributed to this report
