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| Va. Tech gunman writings raised concerns By MATT APUZZO, Associated Press Writer 9 minutes ago BLACKSBURG, Va. - The gunman in the Virginia Tech massacre was a sullen loner who alarmed professors and classmates with his twisted, violence-drenched creative writing and left a rambling note in his dorm room raging against women and rich kids. A chilling picture emerged Tuesday of Cho Seung-Hui — a 23-year-old senior majoring in English — a day after the bloodbath that left 33 people dead, including Cho, who killed himself as police closed in. ADVERTISEMENT News reports said that he may have been taking medication for depression and that he was becoming increasingly violent and erratic. 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 on the deadliest shooting rampage in modern U.S. history. "He was a loner, and we're having difficulty finding information about him," school spokesman Larry Hincker said. A student who attended Virginia Tech last fall provided obscenity- and violence-laced screenplays that he said Cho wrote as part of a playwriting class they both took. One was about a fight between a stepson and his stepfather, and involved throwing of hammers and attacks with a chainsaw. Another was about students fantasizing about stalking and killing a teacher who sexually molested them. "When we read Cho's plays, it was like something out of a nightmare. The plays had really twisted, macabre violence that used weapons I wouldn't have even thought of," former classmate Ian McFarlane, now an AOL employee, wrote in a blog posted on an AOL Web site. 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." Professor Carolyn Rude, chairwoman of the university's English department, said Cho's writing was so disturbing that he had been referred to the university's counseling service. "Sometimes, in creative writing, people reveal things and you never know if it's creative or if they're describing things, if they're imagining things or just how real it might be," Rude said. "But we're all alert to not ignore things like this." She said she did not know when he was referred for counseling, or what the outcome was. Rude refused to release any of his writings or his grades, citing privacy laws. The counseling service refused to comment. 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 in his dorm room that was found after the bloodbath. A government official, who spoke of condition of anonymity because he had not been authorized to discuss details of the case, said the note had been described to him as "anti-woman, anti-rich kid." The Chicago Tribune reported on its Web site that the note railed against "rich kids," "debauchery" and "deceitful charlatans" on campus. ABC, citing law enforcement sources, said that the note, several pages long, explains Cho's actions and says, "You caused me to do this." Col. Steve Flaherty, superintendent of the Virginia State Police, said there was no evidence so far that Cho left a suicide note, but he said authorities were going through a considerable number of writings. Citing unidentified sources, the Tribune also said Cho had recently set a fire in a dorm room and had stalked some women. 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. The Washington Post quoted law enforcement sources as saying Cho died with the words "Ismail Ax" in red ink on one of his arms, but they were not sure what that meant. 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. Classmates painted a similar picture. Some 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. Roanoke Firearms owner John Markell said his shop sold the Glock and a box of practice ammo to Cho 36 days ago for $571. "He was a nice, clean-cut college kid. We won't sell a gun if we have any idea at all that a purchase is suspicious," Markell said. Investigators stopped short of saying Cho carried out both attacks. But State Police ballistics tests showed one gun was used in both. And two law enforcement officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because the information had not been announced, said Cho's fingerprints were on both guns, whose serial numbers had been filed off. Gov. Tim Kaine said he will appoint a panel at the university's request to review authorities' handling of the disaster. Parents and students bitterly 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. Kaine warned against making snap judgments and said he had "nothing but loathing" for those who take the tragedy and "make it their political hobby horse to ride." On Tuesday afternoon, thousands of people gathered in the basketball arena for a memorial service for the victims, with an overflow crowd of thousands watching on a jumbo TV screen in the football stadium. President Bush and the first lady attended. "As you draw closer to your families in the coming days, I ask you to reach out to those who ache for sons and daughters who are never coming home," Bush said. Virginia Tech President Charles Steger received a 30-second standing ovation, despite the criticism of the school administration. With classes canceled for the rest of the week, many students left town in a hurry, lugging pillows, sleeping bags and backpacks down the sidewalks. Jessie Ferguson, 19, a freshman from Arlington, headed for her car with tears streaming down her cheeks. "I'm still kind of shaky," she said. "I had to pump myself up just to kind of come out of the building. I was going to come out, but it took a little bit of 'OK, it's going to be all right. There's lots of cops around.'" She added: "I just don't want to be on campus." Stories of heroism and ingenuity emerged Tuesday. Liviu Librescu, an Israeli engineering and math lecturer, was killed after he was said to have protected his students' lives by blocking the doorway of his classroom from the gunman. And one student, an Eagle Scout, probably saved his own life by using an electrical cord as a tourniquet around his bleeding thigh, a doctor reported. |
| QUOTE (Secert[Lite @ Apr 17 2007, 03:50 PM) |
| Okay, even though murder is really never forgivable, espically without a reason(a reason as in the army), but this really sticks out that, if you notice something wierd about your friend lets not keep quiet, sometimes people need help anyways, a human mind is a dangerous yet delicate thing, the world is a very scary place |
| QUOTE (Luminous_Daybreak @ Apr 18 2007, 04:19 PM) |
| this would be blown up to massive proportion. |
| QUOTE (Luminous_Daybreak @ Apr 18 2007, 05:04 PM) |
| In all honesty though- these massive acts of violence aren't unwarranted. Granted, they are despicable and the perpetrator is held in contempt and disdain- but, I don't know. Nevermind, sorry. |
| QUOTE (blueboy @ Apr 18 2007, 04:34 PM) |
| hold that thought lumi. from what i've been reading on msn and comcast news as of current, this could still potentially blow into a media frenzy. |
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| BLACKSBURG, Va. - Long before he boiled over, Virginia Tech gunman Cho Seung-Hui was picked on, pushed around and laughed at because of his shyness and the strange way he talked when he was a schoolboy in suburban Washington, former classmates say. Chris Davids, a Virginia Tech senior who graduated from Westfield High School in Chantilly, Va., with Cho in 2003, recalled that the South Korean immigrant almost never opened his mouth and would ignore attempts to strike up a conversation. Once, in English class, the teacher had the students read aloud, and when it was Cho's turn, he just looked down in silence, Davids recalled. Finally, after the teacher threatened him with an F for participation, Cho started to read in a strange, deep voice that sounded "like he had something in his mouth," Davids said. "As soon as he started reading, the whole class started laughing and pointing and saying, `Go back to China,'" Davids said. Cho shot 32 people to death and committed suicide Monday in the deadliest one-man shooting rampage in modern U.S. history. The high school classmates' accounts add to the psychological portrait that is beginning to take shape, and could shed light on the video rant Cho mailed to NBC in the middle of his rampage at Virginia Tech. In the often-incoherent video, the 23-year-old Cho portrays himself as persecuted and rants about rich kids. "Your Mercedes wasn't enough, you brats," says Cho, who came to the U.S. at about age 8 in 1992 and whose parents work at a dry cleaners in suburban Washington. "Your golden necklaces weren't enough, you snobs. Your trust funds wasn't enough. Your vodka and cognac wasn't enough. All your debaucheries weren't enough. Those weren't enough to fulfill your hedonistic needs. You had everything." In other developments Thursday: Gov. Timothy Kaine announced the appointment of an independent panel to look into the tragedy and how authorities handled it. Police and university officials have been accused of missing warning signs in Cho's behavior and failing to safeguard the campus after the gunfire broke out. The panel will be led by former Virginia State Police superintendent Gerald Massengill, and will also include former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge. _ University officials announced that all of Cho's student victims would be awarded degrees posthumously, and that other students terrorized by the shootings might be allowed to end the semester immediately without consequences. Among the victims of the massacre were two other Westfield High graduates: Reema Samaha and Erin Peterson. Both young women graduated from the high school last year. Police said it is not clear whether Cho singled them out. Stephanie Roberts, 22, a fellow member of Cho's graduating class at Westfield High, said she never witnessed anyone picking on Cho in high school. "I just remember he was a shy kid who didn't really want to talk to anybody," she said. "I guess a lot of people felt like maybe there was a language barrier." But she said friends of hers who went to middle school with Cho told her they recalled him getting picked on there. "There were just some people who were really mean to him and they would push him down and laugh at him," Roberts said Wednesday. "He didn't speak English really well and they would really make fun of him." Virginia Tech student Alison Heck said a suitemate of hers on campus _ Christina Lilick _ found a mysterious question mark scrawled on the dry erase board on her door. Lilick went to the same high school as Cho, according to Lilick's Facebook page. Cho once scrawled a question mark on the sign-in sheet on the first day of a literature class, and other students came to know him as "the question mark kid." "I don't know if she knew that it was him for sure," Heck said. "I do remember that that fall that she was being stalked and she had mentioned the question mark. And there was a question mark on her door." Heck added: "She just let us know about it just in case there was a strange person walking around our suite." Lilick could not immediately be located for comment, via e-mail or telephone. Regan Wilder, 21, who attended Virginia Tech, high school and middle school with Cho, said she was in several classes with Cho in high school, including advanced-placement calculus and Spanish. She said he walked around with his head down, and almost never spoke. And when he did, it was "a real low mutter, like a whisper." As part of an exam in Spanish class, students had to answer questions in Spanish on tape, and other students were so curious to know what Cho sounded like that they waited eagerly for the teacher to play his recording, she said. She said that on the tape, he did not speak confidently but did seem to know Spanish. Wilder recalled high school teachers trying to get him to participate, but "he would only shrug his shoulders or he'd give like two-word responses, and I think it just got to the point where teachers just gave up because they realized he wasn't going to come out of the shell he was in, so they just kind of passed him over for the most part as time went on." She said she was sure Cho probably was picked on in middle school, but so was everyone else. And it didn't seem as if English was the problem for him, she said. If he didn't speak English well, there were several other Korean students he could have reached out to for friendship, but he didn't, she said. Wilder said Cho wasn't any friendlier in college, where "he always had that same damn blank stare, like glare, on his face. And I'd always try to make eye contact with him because I recognized the kid because I'd seen him for six years, but he'd always just look right past you like you weren't there." Eleven people hurt in the attack remained hospitalized, at least one in serious condition. Authorities on Wednesday disclosed that more than a year before the massacre, Cho had been accused of sending unwanted messages to two women and was taken to a psychiatric hospital on a magistrate's orders and was pronounced a danger to himself. But he was released with orders to undergo outpatient treatment. Also, Cho's twisted, violence-filled writings and menacing, uncommunicative demeanor had disturbed professors and students so much that he was removed from one English class and was repeatedly urged to get counseling. On Wednesday, NBC received a package containing a rambling and often incoherent 23-page written statement from Cho, 28 video clips and 43 photos _ many of them showing Cho, in a military-style vest and backward baseball cap, brandishing handguns. A Postal Service time stamp reads 9:01 a.m. _ between the two attacks on campus. The package helps explain one mystery: where the gunman was and what he did during that two-hour window between the first burst of gunfire, at a high-rise dorm, and the second attack, at a classroom building. "You had a hundred billion chances and ways to have avoided today," a snarling Cho says on video. "But you decided to spill my blood. You forced me into a corner and gave me only one option. The decision was yours. Now you have blood on your hands that will never wash off." |
| QUOTE (Victorthebattousai @ Apr 18 2007, 05:32 AM) |
| And now the democrats are trying to turn it into a gun-control debate. Dear lord, they could have given it a couple days, yeesh. |
| QUOTE (janejana) |
| despite huge flashing warning signs for what is often years, nobody does anything constructive to stop a seriously mentally ill person from indulging in acts of horrific violence. people cluck about how these tragedies could have been prevented, but how many times has *any* administration (at any level, local or national) enacted procedures that are truly 'preventative'? most reponses have been limited to toothless acts like installing metal dectors and/or more referrals--only referrals!--for counseling 'disturbed youths.' |
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| Dude. At my cousins school, some guy wore a tee shirt having cho on it saying "real national hero.."he was asian. And now her school is getting like bomb threats and stuff. He got suspended.. |
| QUOTE (Mills McDougle @ Apr 22 2007, 02:01 AM) |
| Can't say I agree with that. You don't know who the holder of the gun is. Anyone can be so unstable that they snap and do something like that. And you'll never know who. Could be the quiet guy in the back of class. Could be your new best friend. Bearing that in mind, do you still believe in that? |