There has been much speculation in regards to whether at least some, if not all of the deaths that occurred at Virginia Tech could have been preventable. One of the biggest conflicts on this topic is the lack of communication within the school about the gunman, Cho Seung Hui’s prior history of violence and mental illness. According to a New York Times article (2007), “because university officials misunderstood federal privacy laws as forbidding any exchange of a student’s mental health information, the panel’s long-awaited report concludes, they missed numerous indications of the gunman’s mental health problems” (Urbina, p. 1). After making suicidal threats, a judge had previously ordered Cho to receive mental health care at an outpatient facility. Cho attended a pre-appointment interview at the campus counseling center, but was never contacted or prompted to make a follow-up appointment. By not taking the correct measures to treat Cho as a mentally ill patient, the university officials missed a golden opportunity to prevent this massacre altogether.
Another argument on this topic is against the university officials and campus police officers.
These individuals lacked in communicating to their student and faculty members about the initial shootings that had occurred early that morning, shortly after 7:00 a.m. in West Ambler Johnson Hall. The university officials had waited more than two hours before they sent any communication about a shooting to the students and faculty on campus. Unfortunately, that two hour timeframe was precious time lost, in which those on campus could have either escaped or taken proper cover. Instead, police based their assumption of an isolated domestic incident on some witness interviews, but never once consider that the armed gunman might still be on campus, or that he might not be finished killing innocent victims. The actions taken by police in this matter were certainly not appropriate for the level of seriousness that the initial crime had involved. By sitting on the information of a shooting on campus and not informing those within the surrounding campus area, none of the students or the faculty had been allowed to prepare themselves for such a tremendous threat to them all.
Since the Virginia Tech massacre, many schools have reevaluated and reconstructed their safety and security measures on school campuses across the country. Many have instilled an active shooter plan, in which the students and faculty are instructed to be on lockdown and take proper cover. More importantly, campuses have created mass communication connections to get in touch with important information to their students and faculty as soon as possible, including text messaging, emails and automated phone calls. These are all excellent improvements to the way campuses typically handled these types of issues in the past, and things can certainly only continue to improve.
References
Gelineau, K. (2007). Police response timeline at Virginia Tech examined. The Boston Globe. Retrieved from http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2007/04/26/police_response_timeline_at_vir ginia_tech_examined/
Gray, R. H. (2008). Virginia Tech 1 Year Later: How Campuses Have Responded. Campus Safety Magazine. Retrieved from http://www.campussafetymagazine.com/article/Virginia-Tech-1-Year-Later-How- Campuses-Have-Responded
Schaenman, Ph. (2007). Lessons learned at Virginia Tech shooting. Retrieved from http://www.policeone.com/school-violence/articles/1473536-Lessons-learned-at- Virginia-Tech-shooting/
Urbina, I. (2007). Virginia Tech Criticized for Actions in Shooting. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/30/us/30school.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
