ECURB Posted April 17, 2007 Share Posted April 17, 2007 i absolutely, 100% agree there should've been a lockdown, my only point is i don't think it would've stopped psycho from killing again. I know thats where ^ that thinking on my part comes in.. they need to focus more on catching the killer on the lose... a lockdown just helps that process. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joewilly Posted April 17, 2007 Share Posted April 17, 2007 I know thats where ^ that thinking on my part comes in.. they need to focus more on catching the killer on the lose... a lockdown just helps that process. yeah but I think they thought the killer left campus but they had no Idea he left to reload. hindsight shows they were wrong for sure and they will suffer repurcussions for sure. are you not surprised the killer waited 2 hrs & killed again? I don't know who could have seen that comin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ECURB Posted April 17, 2007 Share Posted April 17, 2007 yeah but I think they thought the killer left campus but they had no Idea he left to reload. hindsight shows they were wrong for sure and they will suffer repurcussions for sure. are you not surprised the killer waited 2 hrs & killed again? I don't know who could have seen that comin Thats what lockdowns and searches are for... He wouldnt have had the chance to kill 2 hours later if the campus was swarming with cops looking for him... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joewilly Posted April 17, 2007 Share Posted April 17, 2007 Thats what lockdowns and searches are for... He wouldnt have had the chance to kill 2 hours later if the campus was swarming with cops looking for him... I guess I can't argue with you there e curb. too bad, i'm really startin to like arguing Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ECURB Posted April 17, 2007 Share Posted April 17, 2007 I guess I can't argue with you there e curb. too bad, i'm really startin to like arguing I just cant imagine if my kid were killed during this not being pissed off at the school... they totally screwed up and got too many kids killed... it should have been 2 dead, not 32.... Here is the sh*t head that did it... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joewilly Posted April 17, 2007 Share Posted April 17, 2007 I just cant imagine if my kid were killed during this not being pissed off at the school... they totally screwed up and got too many kids killed... it should have been 2 dead, not 32.... Here is the sh*t head that did it... you can't really say that for sure ecurb. lockdown coulda grouped many kids together & if he happened upon a very large group it could have been worse. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ECURB Posted April 17, 2007 Share Posted April 17, 2007 you can't really say that for sure ecurb. lockdown coulda grouped many kids together & if he happened upon a very large group it could have been worse. If they properly executed a lockdown it would have worked... He was in the dorm to start... how many people could have been possibly locked in with him at once??? Once there is a shot fired it should be a lockdown.. then the cops can come and get him... Also usually cowards like this shoot themselves as soon as the walls start closing in... the school practically opened the walls back up for him... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joewilly Posted April 17, 2007 Share Posted April 17, 2007 If they properly executed a lockdown it would have worked... He was in the dorm to start... how many people could have been possibly locked in with him at once??? Once there is a shot fired it should be a lockdown.. then the cops can come and get him... Also usually cowards like this shoot themselves as soon as the walls start closing in... the school practically opened the walls back up for him... good point except I think he was long gone from the dorm prior to cops or school admin hearing about the shooting in the 1st place. hindsight does seem to show they would have been much better off with an immediate lockdown. at that time I think its arguable about what the right call was based on info available though Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ECURB Posted April 17, 2007 Share Posted April 17, 2007 good point except I think he was long gone from the dorm prior to cops or school admin hearing about the shooting in the 1st place. hindsight does seem to show they would have been much better off with an immediate lockdown. at that time I think its arguable about what the right call was based on info available though Gunfire at a school should = lockdown, cancelled classes, possibly evacuation, large polie presense for secuirty in ALL building Always, there should be no exceptions on this... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bugg Posted April 17, 2007 Share Posted April 17, 2007 Short of a police state, nothing could've prevented it. Evil exists. There are bad people, ones that all the gun laws in the world would not stop. One thing I can add as above-can all the self esteem people be quiet now? Seems this guy couldn't deal with rejection. It's one of those hard experiences we all must face-rejection, failure, loss. Instead of pretending everyone is wonderful and we all get along 24/7, let's start being honest with our children and teens and show and tell them that these things are simply part of life, not an end. You cannot always get what you want. Some people will not like you and will not wish to date you. Soemtimes your best efforts on your best days will come up short. You may be rejected by others. You may fail. That doesn't make you a bad person, merely human. Get up and dust yourself off; tommorrow really is another day. We all experience that heartache at one time or another, but you have to move on and deal with it-like everyone else. And these things aren't fair. But life isn't fair, and anyone who tells you otherwise is a liar. And even on your worst days, there is always hope. In your faith(if you have one), in your family, in the people who love and support you. ANd if I were running any college curiculum, I would make sure Viktor Frankl's "Man's Search for Meaning" was somewhere in freshman psychology or philosophy. But admittedly today might not be the day to go there. Meantime, condolences. What can you say? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnny green balls Posted April 17, 2007 Share Posted April 17, 2007 Short of a police state, nothing could've prevented it. Evil exists. There are bad people, ones that all the gun laws in the world would not stop. One thing I can add as above-can all the self esteem people be quiet now? Seems this guy couldn't deal with rejection. It's one of those hard experiences we all must face-rejection, failure, loss. Instead of pretending everyone is wonderful and we all get along 24/7, let's start being honest with our children and teens and show and tell them that these things are simply part of life, not an end. You cannot always get what you want. Some people will not like you and will not wish to date you. Soemtimes your best efforts on your best days will come up short. You may be rejected by others. You may fail. That doesn't make you a bad person, merely human. Get up and dust yourself off; tommorrow really is another day. We all experience that heartache at one time or another, but you have to move on and deal with it-like everyone else. And these things aren't fair. But life isn't fair, and anyone who tells you otherwise is a liar. And even on your worst days, there is always hope. In your faith(if you have one), in your family, in the people who love and support you. ANd if I were running any college curiculum, I would make sure Viktor Frankl's "Man's Search for Meaning" was somewhere in freshman psychology or philosophy. But admittedly today might not be the day to go there. Meantime, condolences. What can you say? nearly perfect post, if you had just added "...and stop refusing to keep score in little league games, it prevents kids from learning about disappointment early on" this would've been a POTW lock. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boozer76 Posted April 17, 2007 Share Posted April 17, 2007 If they properly executed a lockdown it would have worked... He was in the dorm to start... how many people could have been possibly locked in with him at once??? Once there is a shot fired it should be a lockdown.. then the cops can come and get him... Also usually cowards like this shoot themselves as soon as the walls start closing in... the school practically opened the walls back up for him... That school is huge. It would have taken 2 hours to lock it down and get everyone off campus. That's the equivalent of your neighbor being shot on your block and evacutaing 5-10 total blocks for that shooting alone. It looked like a domestic dispute. 99.9% of domestic disputes end at that or at worst them finding the killer holed up ready to shoot himself in a standoff. That's just the way it is. There has NEVER been a situation like this before. Furthermore, if they locked the school down, do they lock it until the killer is apprehended? Sometimes it can be days, weeks, years, never that you find the killer. If they open back up the next day he could have come back them. The bottom line is there are lunatics out there. There are people who are F-ed up in the head that are going to do things that we can't p[ossibly fathom. This is a terrible shame, but no matter what level of precaustion we take incidents like this will happen so long as their are completely deranged people and there will ALWAYS be completely deranged people. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
McGraw38 Posted April 17, 2007 Share Posted April 17, 2007 Shoulda, Coulda, Woulda isn't gonna bring any of the 32 dead back. I personally think some form of measure should've been taken after the first shooting, but it's far to late for that now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joewilly Posted April 17, 2007 Share Posted April 17, 2007 That school is huge. It would have taken 2 hours to lock it down and get everyone off campus. That's the equivalent of your neighbor being shot on your block and evacutaing 5-10 total blocks for that shooting alone. It looked like a domestic dispute. 99.9% of domestic disputes end at that or at worst them finding the killer holed up ready to shoot himself in a standoff. That's just the way it is. There has NEVER been a situation like this before. Furthermore, if they locked the school down, do they lock it until the killer is apprehended? Sometimes it can be days, weeks, years, never that you find the killer. If they open back up the next day he could have come back them. The bottom line is there are lunatics out there. There are people who are F-ed up in the head that are going to do things that we can't p[ossibly fathom. This is a terrible shame, but no matter what level of precaustion we take incidents like this will happen so long as their are completely deranged people and there will ALWAYS be completely deranged people. good post boozer, it really did look like it was a domestic dispute & authorities felt it was over as far as campus trouble. who expects a killer to return to the scene after killing 2 people. this was bizarre in every sense, unusual & tragic Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt39 Posted April 18, 2007 Share Posted April 18, 2007 Just thinking about all of this, it's amazing how the Columbine kids only killed 13 others when they had much more powerful weaponry thaN this lunatic. I mean they had machine guns, didnt they? How a kid with two handguns mows down 30+ people just seems surreal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kidhuman Posted April 18, 2007 Share Posted April 18, 2007 This school has some serious issues... two people shot dead and they let things go on like a nearly normal day... all they had to do was lock things down to prevent this many deaths... The police and campus followed every guideline in a domestic shooting. They locked down the building. How many domestic shootings end in a rampage like this? Not exactly true... this same school had a successful lock down last fall... The difference there is that the lock down started on a weekend when an escaped convict broke out of the hospital and killed a cop there. He was hunted for 2 days. They had much time to organize the proper lock down at this point. Locking down a college of this magnitude at 7:30 am is like locking down Grand Central Station during rush hour, impossible to do. That morning on the way to work, cops had every road blocked off and were searching peoples cars, they made me pop my truck and searched the inside of it and grilled me on where I was going. When you have the time to institute it it can work. 20 minutes to round up 26k in students plus faculty is not going to happen. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bugg Posted April 18, 2007 Share Posted April 18, 2007 It may give you some sense of comfort to think a "lockdown" would've stopped this. May be. But there are bad evil people in this world,determined to kill others no matter what. We can be a mean evil rotten brutal cruel species, this POS being the latest example. Emily won't play with me-everyone dies! I've lived to see a pope and a president shot, and I lived through 9/11. If someone is really determined, sometimes they cannot be stopped. Even if these cops did everything right, it might not have mattered. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ECURB Posted April 18, 2007 Share Posted April 18, 2007 For those who dont think a lockdown would have helped... http://video.msn.com/v/us/msnbc.htm?g=1faa1696-7865-4c1f-b72d-115f2adc9e8e&f=00&fg=email thats an interesting video Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JetCane Posted April 18, 2007 Share Posted April 18, 2007 Short of a police state, nothing could've prevented it. Evil exists. There are bad people, ones that all the gun laws in the world would not stop. One thing I can add as above-can all the self esteem people be quiet now? Seems this guy couldn't deal with rejection. It's one of those hard experiences we all must face-rejection, failure, loss. Instead of pretending everyone is wonderful and we all get along 24/7, let's start being honest with our children and teens and show and tell them that these things are simply part of life, not an end. You cannot always get what you want. Some people will not like you and will not wish to date you. Soemtimes your best efforts on your best days will come up short. You may be rejected by others. You may fail. That doesn't make you a bad person, merely human. Get up and dust yourself off; tommorrow really is another day. We all experience that heartache at one time or another, but you have to move on and deal with it-like everyone else. And these things aren't fair. But life isn't fair, and anyone who tells you otherwise is a liar. And even on your worst days, there is always hope. In your faith(if you have one), in your family, in the people who love and support you. ANd if I were running any college curiculum, I would make sure Viktor Frankl's "Man's Search for Meaning" was somewhere in freshman psychology or philosophy. But admittedly today might not be the day to go there. Meantime, condolences. What can you say? Great post, Buggster. You are wise man. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boozer76 Posted April 18, 2007 Share Posted April 18, 2007 For those who dont think a lockdown would have helped... http://video.msn.com/v/us/msnbc.htm?g=1faa1696-7865-4c1f-b72d-115f2adc9e8e&f=00&fg=email thats an interesting video You know what, it's realeasy for us all to sit back and play monday morning QB after the fact. Should any campus be closed when there is a shooting no matter what, possibly that's the best solution. But if you go across the entire country every University would have handled this the same way. It looked like a domestic dispute plain and simple. Where do you draw the line on closing a campus and being ridiculous. Take Rutgers for example-when should they follow protocol of closing the campus? They are spread out all over New Brunswick amongst the regular population. Do yo shut them down anytime there is a murder victim found shot in New Brunswick? How about the Newark campus? They'll never have class if they did that. Using this tragedy as a means to find solutions on dealing with the issue going forward for all universities is a good thing to do and I'm all for it. However the news reporters keep harping on this agenda to stir up controversy because lord knows tragedy is not enough to fuel their 24 hour coverage, they need to drum up unnecessary controversy to keep things going. The U and the police did what they thought was necessary at the time. They closed the dorm and sent out an email alerting that there was a shooting on campus. It's disgusting to place blame on the U and police for doing what they thought best at the time given the current circumstances AT THAT TIME. Every University would have done the same thing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ECURB Posted April 18, 2007 Share Posted April 18, 2007 This kid had been raising red flags left and right on campus... he had been kicked out of some classes even... He shot two people, walked back to his dorm, hung out for 2 hours, walked across campus (a fairly short walk) chained up some doors and shot 30 people... The school and local authorites blew this one big time... there is no excuse for it... I am not playing monday morning QB... I am playing common sense... They let 11,000 comuters come to campus and go to class that morning, knowing that there was an armed shooter willing to kill on the loose... there is no excuse for that... They turned down help from the state police until the second shooting.... VT F'ed up big time and it cost innocent people their lives... would he have still killed? Sure... but it would have been 2 dead, not 32... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
afosomf Posted April 18, 2007 Share Posted April 18, 2007 This kid had been raising red flags left and right on campus... he had been kicked out of some classes even... He shot two people, walked back to his dorm, hung out for 2 hours, walked across campus (a fairly short walk) chained up some doors and shot 30 people... The school and local authorites blew this one big time... there is no excuse for it... I am not playing monday morning QB... I am playing common sense... They let 11,000 comuters come to campus and go to class that morning, knowing that there was an armed shooter willing to kill on the loose... there is no excuse for that... They turned down help from the state police until the second shooting.... VT F'ed up big time and it cost innocent people their lives... would he have still killed? Sure... but it would have been 2 dead, not 32... I agree a lock down would have reduced the casualties, it would have been higher than 2 though, would not have been 32. Another question is why do we need to sell automatic weapons? Had it been a regular gun, the death toll would have dropped significantly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joewilly Posted April 18, 2007 Share Posted April 18, 2007 thanks for the link ecurb, moreso for the other clips offered. what a horrible tragedy. I can see why you feel lockdown should have been automatic but I also see buggs point. I don't think the administration or authorities should in any way be blamed for doing what they thought was in the best interest of everyone involved at the time. like bugg I am really upset with the media trying to exploit the anger card that they seem to think the students should be feeling. with a 26,000 + alumni, Virginia Tech appears to be an amazing college able to instill a tight knit community feel for students who gather globally to get educated, and they should be commended for that. I hope vt along with every other college in the us can learn from the atrocity and better security measures are instilled nationwide I don't see hindsight fingerpointing helping anyone but selfish people & their lawyers trying to gain financially from this tragedy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ECURB Posted April 18, 2007 Share Posted April 18, 2007 I agree a lock down would have reduced the casualties, it would have been higher than 2 though, would not have been 32. Another question is why do we need to sell automatic weapons? Had it been a regular gun, the death toll would have dropped significantly. He shot 2 people then went and chilled in his dorm room for 2 hours... I think they could have easily kept it to at least less than 5 people if the actively looked for a shooter on campus... I feel terrible for these people to have their kids killed in this way... I mean they let people that werent even on the campus come to class... its sick.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RSJ Posted April 18, 2007 Share Posted April 18, 2007 I live in a town of approx 35k which is the same as Blacksburg (students included). About a year ago the police found 2 people stabbed to death (a women and a chid) in a local park. The whole town went in a semi lockdown state. There were cops all over the town (state and local). They announced the killings on TV and on the radio and warned everyone to stay inside with their doors locked. This killing was done with a knife and not a fire arm which makes VT look even worse. I still say a lockdown and an immediate heavy police presence would have definilty cut the killings way, way down. Also I'm not a big fan of the fact that you can't carry a firearm on a Virginia college campus. If you are going to make a law like that then provide more heavily armed security. Otherwise you are inviting this situation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joewilly Posted April 18, 2007 Share Posted April 18, 2007 I live in a town of approx 35k which is the same as Blacksburg (students included). About a year ago the police found 2 people stabbed to death (a women and a chid) in a local park. The whole town went in a semi lockdown state. There were cops all over the town (state and local). They announced the killings on TV and on the radio and warned everyone to stay inside with their doors locked. This killing was done with a knife and not a fire arm which makes VT look even worse. I still say a lockdown and an immediate heavy police presence would have definilty cut the killings way, way down. Also I'm not a big fan of the fact that you can't carry a firearm on a Virginia college campus. If you are going to make a law like that then provide more heavily armed security. Otherwise you are inviting this situation. it could be argued that the lockdown could have only delayed the killing spree for a day or so. I doubt guns are allowed on campus, along with weed, coke & alchohal for minors Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lady Jet Posted April 18, 2007 Share Posted April 18, 2007 The U and the police did what they thought was necessary at the time. They closed the dorm and sent out an email alerting that there was a shooting on campus. It's disgusting to place blame on the U and police for doing what they thought best at the time given the current circumstances AT THAT TIME. I agree. It's easy to second guess them in hindsight and I'm sure they handled it as best they could with the information they had at the time. I do however have a hard time understanding why they continued to allow him to be a student at VT. The inappropriate writings, the stalking, the need to take him out of a class because he was making the students and professor uneasy, his taking candid pictures of people during class, and was suspected of starting a fire in a dorm room. While none, with the exception of the alleged arson are illegal, is that not enough reason to expel him? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ECURB Posted April 18, 2007 Share Posted April 18, 2007 it could be argued that the lockdown could have only delayed the killing spree for a day or so. I doubt guns are allowed on campus, along with weed, coke & alchohal for minors What do you mean? He would have **** 2 people, they could have went on lockdown and he most likely would have killed himself at this point once he knew it was over or they would have caught him... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RSJ Posted April 18, 2007 Share Posted April 18, 2007 it could be argued that the lockdown could have only delayed the killing spree for a day or so. I doubt guns are allowed on campus, along with weed, coke & alchohal for minors Guns are allowed on many other campuses across america. It just so happens that you can not on any college in Virginia. Weed and Coke are illegal, firearms are not. I highly doubt it would have delayed the killings for a day or two. Lets recap: You found two students shot to death in a dorm room and you don't think locking down the campus for a day and bringing in a police presence to both investigate and deter further attacks is a good idea? I'm not talking about for the morning. I mean for a few days. Besides 21 minutes to go nuts shooting is way, way too long. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boozer76 Posted April 18, 2007 Share Posted April 18, 2007 What do you mean? He would have **** 2 people, they could have went on lockdown and he most likely would have killed himself at this point once he knew it was over or they would have caught him... Most likely?? Exactly my point, you most likely have no idea what he would have done. He probably had no idea what he would have done. I would love to know where it was reported as proof he was in his dorm room for 2 hours. You're making an aweful lot of assumptions that you don't know as fact. Again, I agree that this should be used as an example for all colleges to improve response going forward, but I guarantee not one college across the country of that size would have reacted any differently to the exact same situation. As to the signs leading up to that day-There are tons of F-ed up kids that write things like that,act like that, have no friends, and have all the indicators of someone like this killer. Very few of them actually act out on it. Are you suggesting we should have locked him up along with every other individual that has some distorted thoughts? We'll have more people in jail than walking free on the streets in this country. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joewilly Posted April 18, 2007 Share Posted April 18, 2007 yeah, my argument is weak and you both make good points. I just feel they thought it was a domestic dispute & never anticipated the killer returning to campus. much will be learned from this & they did not intend for their actions to prompt further killings. you guys gotta admit it is pretty bizarre to kill again in 2 hrs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnny green balls Posted April 18, 2007 Share Posted April 18, 2007 I live in a town of approx 35k which is the same as Blacksburg (students included). About a year ago the police found 2 people stabbed to death (a women and a chid) in a local park. The whole town went in a semi lockdown state. There were cops all over the town (state and local). They announced the killings on TV and on the radio and warned everyone to stay inside with their doors locked. This killing was done with a knife and not a fire arm which makes VT look even worse. I still say a lockdown and an immediate heavy police presence would have definilty cut the killings way, way down. Also I'm not a big fan of the fact that you can't carry a firearm on a Virginia college campus. If you are going to make a law like that then provide more heavily armed security. Otherwise you are inviting this situation. us southerners don't have the financial resources to institute such a massive lockdown. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dickkotite Posted April 18, 2007 Share Posted April 18, 2007 Another question is why do we need to sell automatic weapons? Had it been a regular gun, the death toll would have dropped significantly. assmop what do u think an "automatic" does? Im curious to hear how you think its a machine gun where you hold the trigger down and it fires until empty Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dickkotite Posted April 18, 2007 Share Posted April 18, 2007 he could have killed just as many people with a revolver. he could have had 5 revolvers loaded and ready to go. there are so many scenarious that focusing on "automatic" weapons (which really means semiautomatic) is a waste of time. you could kill 33 people by stealing a hummer and driving through a parade route Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnny green balls Posted April 18, 2007 Share Posted April 18, 2007 he could have killed just as many people with a revolver. he could have had 5 revolvers loaded and ready to go. there are so many scenarious that focusing on "automatic" weapons (which really means semiautomatic) is a waste of time. you could kill 33 people by stealing a hummer and driving through a parade route lot of revolvers nowadays have quick loading cylinders. they are very similar to loading up a new clip on a semi. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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