South Korean Ambassador Lee Tae-Sik and members of Northern Virginia’s large Korean-American community promised to help the state heal the wounds inflicted by the shootings at Virginia Tech during a public meeting Tuesday with Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine.

Several Korean speakers at the event, which was held at the Mason District Government Center in Annandale, said the Korean community would do more to help children suffering from mental illness. Koreans around the world have repeatedly proclaimed the sorrow they feel over the killings since police announced they believed Korean immigrant Seung-Hui Cho killed 32 faculty members and students before committing suicide April 16. Cho, who graduated from Westfield High School in Chantilly, had been found to be mentally ill and a danger to himself in December 2005.

Eung Chang Kim, the president of the Washington-area Korean-American Association, said Koreans should engage in extensive “soul searching” over the deadliest armed attack on an American campus.

“We were completely horrified and speechless when we learned that someone from our community was responsible for the shootings,” Kim told a crowd of about 150. “I hope we will search for ways to prevent similar tragedies. Our community groups should review the way they operate and help support and guide people. We are going to have to work very hard.”

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Kaine, Korean community leaders and local officials emphasized that the rampage was caused by Cho’s mental illness and had nothing to do with his ethnicity.

“This could have occurred on any campus at any university anywhere in the world,” the governor said. “We are all one community in the commonwealth.”

Kaine also promised the crowd that law enforcement officials would take a tough stand on harassment or discrimination against Koreans because of the Virginia Tech tragedy. A backlash against Koreans has been a concern of immigrants living in the United States and in South Korea.

During another event Tuesday, the U.S. ambassador to South Korea said in a speech at Johns Hopkins University that he had been trying to encourage “my Korean friends to understand it is not about them.” Alexander Vershbow added that Koreans adhere to “a spirit of collective responsibility and collective guilt, which I hope is not going to prevail.”

jrogalsky@dcexaminer.com