Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Virginia Tech Massacre

I hovered patiently until the Blog universe’s chatter about Virginia Tech had slowed until I gave my own take of what happened during the Virginia Tech massacre. I understand that the Virginia Tech assassin was a disillusioned South Korean English major by the name of Cho Seung-Hui. He is described by the people that knew of him as “strange” and “depressed.” Being strange and depressed describes a lot of American college students. According to CNN he spent time in a mental institute for being suicidal in 2005. He is described by some of his teachers as being mean as well as weird by old college roommates.

Being in public safety for over 20 years I have seen a lot of homicides. I understand the difference between blind rage and methodically attacking your victim. Lovers kill in blind, passionate rage, Serial Killers are methodical. Get the picture? This young man studied his targets, probed and then executed 34 students and faculty with prudence and when he made his point he committed suicide. I am in no way glorifying his brutal actions. I am offering a rational view, my view, of what happened. I feel a true deep sadness for all those kids killed because one young man was sad.

On April 15, 2007 Cho was one of a thousand other disillusioned young people headed to Prozac lane. On April 16, 2007 he took a detour and became a monster. Now the media wants to point a finger at the staff of Virginia Tech for not being able to see through Cho’s angst and stop him before he killed. What they don’t realize there is no crystal ball. There wasn’t one for Columbine, Nickel Mines or Red Lake. And we have learned from those school tragedies placing the blame does not raise the dead. Placing the blame only kills careers.

Virginia Tech as well as the local Law Enforcement did one of the most fantastic jobs in keeping its students alive. I bet you a dollar to a huge bucket of doughnuts their survival plan was not written down. There wasn't a “In Case of Angry Asian Guy Attack Plan.” I applaud the faculty for what they did as well as the students who survived to help others. And I hope from this incident there is not a knee jerk response to arm our college students or ostracize those people whom we deem unfit.


~Vale~

1 comment:

Sheila said...

I believe there are a lot of scary, sick or evil people out there in need of mental health attention. I pray someone gets to them before another one cracks. At least we could make it harder for them to get a gun.