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Related Topics: BLACKSBURG, Va.
BLACKSBURG, Va. (Map, News) - Virginia Tech’s internal report on the April 16 shooting rampage recommends actions to block future attackers, including steps to better control access to buildings and classrooms and creating student-care teams to monitor potentially dangerous students.
The findings, released Wednesday, did not evaluate how the university handled the deadliest massacre on an American campus.
President Charles Steger and other university officials have been heavily criticized by victims’ parents for not shutting down the Blacksburg campus after Seung-Hui Cho killed two students in a dormitory. Two hours later, Cho stormed into a classroom building and fatally shot 30 students and faculty before committing suicide.
Steger defended the decision to keep the campus open and said a panel commissioned by Gov. Tim Kaine will evaluate the university’s response. That group’s findings will be released next Thursday.
“Such a lockdown is simply not feasible on a campus the size of a small city,” Steeger said. “However, it is certainly feasible to secure or harden individual buildings and other facilities.”
The report calls for installing locks on the insides of 157 classroom doors, removing handles so doors can’t be chained shut and exploring the use of electronic key cards to restrict building access.
Before Cho began his second round of killing, he chained the doors of the classroom building shut, which slowed police as they tried to enter after the killing began. In some classrooms, students or professors used their bodies to barricade the door to prevent Cho from entering.
The university should create a team of police, counselors and other personnel to monitor students who could harm themselves or others, the report said. Cho received outpatient counseling more than a year before the shootings and was banned from an English class after writing a disturbing play. The student-care team also should resolve any questions about what information can be shared under federal privacy laws. A federal report released earlier this year said confusion over the privacy guidelines may have hampered Cho’s treatment.
“Sharing critical information is one of the most important aspects of managing the potential for violence with respect to at-risk students,” the report said.
jrogalsky@dcexaminer.com
Comments from Examiner Readers
9:55 PM MST on Fri., Nov. 30, 2007 re: "Despite tragedy, Va. led nation on gun database"
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6:30 PM MST on Fri., Nov. 30, 2007
re: "Despite tragedy, Va. led nation on gun database"
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Examiner Reader said:
Nice cover up.. Take the tazers from the cops on steroids
112 agree | 115 disagree
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Kgotthardt said:
Here's a better idea. Get rid of guns. Guns are for cops and for soldiers, sometimes for trained and licensed hunters. Right to bear arms? Fine. Carry a damn Swiss Army knife and let the rest of us live.
131 agree | 116 disagree
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