Extra, Extra
Extra, Extra
Extra, Extra
Extra, Extra
Early Addition
The man who shot 32 people at Virginia Tech yesterday morning was identified by authorities as Cho Seung Hui. He is described as a 23-year-old student, a senior majoring in English, who lived in one of the dorms. He is also a legal resident from South Korea.
Additionally, ballistics from one of the guns retrieved at Norris Hall, where the second shooting of 30 students took place, matched ballistics evidence from the first shooting at a dormitory. (NBC News says that it appears he legally purchased the guns in the past few days -and it's legal for legal residents to buy guns.) The authorities are starting to release the names of victims, after they have been identified and next of kin have been notified.
More from the NY Times (also, look at this article about how media coverage of shootings has been sadly familiar), CNN, Roanoke Times and Washington Post. The Post spoke to Mets third baseman David Wright, whose brother attends VT, while the Daily News had an article about some of early known victims. Also, Rudy Giuliani canceled a trip to Virginia (he was scheduled to go to Pat Roberston's Regent University), and the Sun suggests the shooting "is expected to put an end to what had been seen as an unwillingness to fully address gun issues so far in the campaign."
And in the editorial roundup: The NY Times and Daily News urge for greater gun control laws, while the Post blames VT for not locking down the campus earlier and the Sun questions gun-on-campus laws.
Update: AOL's Newsbloggers have excerpts of plays written by Cho (pictured), which are angry and violent. An AOL employee, Ian McFarland, who supplied them writes, "When I first heard about the multiple shootings at Virginia Tech yesterday, my first thought was about my friends, and my second thought was 'I bet it was Seung Cho.'"
The NY Times has an article about Cho - described as a "loner" and very quiet - and interviews with his roommates. Additionally, his family was moved from their Virginia home (apparently a gun shell was found outside and reporters were also removed) and a Virginia gun shop says Cho bought a gun for $571 a month ago. South Korean officials released a statement conveying "deep condolences to victims, families and the American people" but also hoped the shooting, with no motive yet known, would not "stir up racial prejudice or confrontation.”
More updates from Virginia Tech's student newspaper, Collegiate Times, and here's a timeline of events from MSNBC.
Photograph of student signing a memorial by Chuck Burton/AP
add to digg
add to stumble upon
add to reddit
email this
add to facebook
add to del.icio.us
Patiently waiting for people to spout their anti immigration hate. Or, does the perp have to be Latino for that?
You're not being patient enough. Give it a minute.
The guy misidentified as the shooter by Drudge got all sorts of hate.
The guy's website:
wanusmaximus.livejournal.com/
I saw that last night, MH.
He should sue for something. And, the chicago sun times should retract it's headline.
Chinese, South Korean, what's the diff, right??
Thankfully the people of VT are not like those on Drudge.
I can only hope in a similar situation I wouldn't go total sheep, lined up against a wall in denial about what's happening and shot in the head while praying for myself to be anywhere but there. Three able-bodied people -- armed or unarmed, doesn't matter -- couldn't have taken this asshole down?
Baudrillard had it right -- modern society is disgustingly a simulation of life. We're conditioned to not understand what's really happening around us.
Oh and BTW -- Koreans are some crazy motherfuckers. Just to keep this comment in the same vein as all the others on this story.
"Red Dawn" said:
(sigh)Greeeeeaaaaaat... another Armchair Hero with racist tendencies too...
Pretty soon, all threads will need to be moderated.
Er...how to you propose the class would have taken him down? They were sitting down at tables. He comes in with an ammo vest and probably multiple guns. There is no way to get behind him to knock him down.
Good question, bob... but if you have a crowd of people and are going to get shot anyway, why not go in as a force and overwhelm the dude? At some point, there's no talking your way out of it... don't do anything and die; do something and die; do something and maybe one or two die; do something and no one dies.
From what I have read, some of the people who died were crowded at a door that he had chained. Anyway, you're point is valid. I saw one of the girls from one of the classrooms where only three to four people walked out of the room. They had played dead, and then went to the door and barricaded it with their feet. The gunman came back and shot through the door he couldn't open, but the students kept the door shut.
In the heat of the moment, though, fear is great.
Two or three well thrown Engineering textbooks would have disabled the guy or knocked the gun out of his hands. There's always >something
I'm quite sure that all the people giving advice/opinions on how to handle a situation like this have combat experience or some other type of training, right? Please.
This was a horrible tragedy and instead of second-guessing victims or spewing ridiculous rhetoric why not just express sadness and best wishes to the families and friends of the victims?
Yeah, which is faster a text book or a finger on a trigger.
We can hypothesize all we want, Unless you have the videotape, we don't know what one would do.
Or, what any of them did.
Every picture tells a story, story.
is it me or does the VT sign look like that typical van halen logo? guess there'll be some eulogies around the kegger down there at virginia tech this week, yah bro
i'm betting none of you internet jack bauer types has had a gun pointed at your gut. there's also something called the bystander effect-everyone waits for someone to do something, so everyone dies.
I don't think anyone is second guessing anyone. I think people are thinking through a tragic situation and wondering what one can do when something like this happens.
And JP... you have no idea where anyone of us have expressed other opinions of grief and sorrow over this.
How about we blame the SHOOTER, kids?
ANY heavily-armed person with intent and the element of surprise can kill lots of people.
This is a senseless tragedy. Don't go looking for answers and scapegoats right now. Just send some prayers/vibes to the families of the kids and teachers who will never again experience life.
what the fuck is up with koreans and suicide? they have got to have the highest suicide rates ever. Even all the rich and famous koreans commit suicide. I think 5 korean actresses and singers have committed suicide in the last 3 years and also the heir to the samsung fortune. All young, rich and beautiful with their lives ahead of them and they end it. Someone has got to do a pychological profile
If this guy was untrained then yes, a crowd of people could have taken him down. It's not like he was Delta Force or Matt Damon in the Bourne Identity.
As soon as you realize the shooter isn't kidding or taking hostages you need to make a move. It's what made the United 93 passengers take action. As soon as realize these guys are going to crash the plane you might as well go down swinging. My bet is that the next time a plane is hijacked by guys with knives the passengers will revolt immediately. Here's hoping the naysayers here aren't on my flight.
Who is blaming the victims? Jaime, no one is blaming the victims. Again, folks just seem to be discussing what one may or not do. Scapegoats? You are certainly reading something into this line of conversation that doesn't exist.
In any event, the victims will get millions from the lawsuits, so they'll do just fine.
Elderta: In your first post on this thread you wrote: "...but if you have a crowd of people and are going to get shot anyway, why not go in as a force and overwhelm the dude?"
Sounds like second-guessing to me. My point is that any type of conjecture as to what any one of us may have done is ridiculous because we weren't there.
And regardless of where else you may have posted thoughts of grief and sorrow it hasn't been here because I've seen neither in any of your posts.
How are you as a group going to conspire to take down the shooter when you are sitting at desks and he is quickly taking everyone out. The more realistic thing is to hide behind tables, which is what people did.
I'd like to meet all you Jack Bauer, Spiderman, MacGuyver types.
I didn't say I posted on Gothamist regarding my condolences. The thread from yesterday was full of hateful comments, and frankly, I didn't want to comment.
I responded to bob's question, "Er...how to you propose the class would have taken him down? They were sitting down at tables. He comes in with an ammo vest and probably multiple guns. There is no way to get behind him to knock him down." I agreed with bob and then asked a logical question... "but if you have a crowd of people and are going to get shot anyway, why not go in as a force and overwhelm the dude." Sorry if sounded like second guessing, but it was in response to a query, a query that now gets me a "jack bauer type" response from bob. I have no idea what happened in that building, and I'm sure it was a nightmare, but the question was asked, and I responded.
And bob... thanks for thinking that I'm a "Jack Bauer, Spiderman, MacGuyver types." If you ask a question and get defensive at a response, I don't think I'd like to meet you!
it's called subtext: i don't get why the holocaust happened, _i_ would have left germany.
I was reading about Ryan Clark. Wow. He was working on three majors, had a 4.0 average, and was involved with the University as a student advisor. He came down to rescue a woman who was being abused by that scumbag Cho, and ended up murdered trying to save a life.
And what about Prof. Liviu Librescu. A former researcher for NASA, who was a holocaust survivor, and gave his life to protect his students.
Contrast that with that loser piece of crap, Cho.
Apparently, Cho was obsessed with a girl named Emily Hilscher who didn't even notice him.
What a loser. He was probably upset because he had a small penis too!
Ah yes, because in Germany you couldn't respond to questions, either.
Anyway, sorry if I offended. That wasn't my intent.
Yeah Larry, because money solves all problems. I'm sure the parents who lost children would rather have 2 mil from VT than their dead child alive again.
You retard.
In the bigger context of things, everyone has a small penis.
In protest, I will not go to the drycleaners today, nor will I eat any dog meat.
Thank you.
well... murray [#2] was right.
I too was responding to "how can you face down someone with a gun in a classrom?" and got called all sorts of names by intollerant fascists.
In fact, I've gotten hit in the noggin' with a huge Biology text and was dazed for a few moments, so I speak with some experience, here.
I'll go back to sending "vibes" now, so as not to further incur the wrath of the people here. It's what the victims would want.
the people who are in the hospital mostly have multiple gun shot wounds. i don't get how people think you can rush a guy who is spraying you with bullets and overtake him.
You know i was thinking of something racist to say like "ching chong wa" but that's chinese and I "rike my rips" but that's japanese. I was dumbfounded that I didn't know anything about koreans and couldn't zero in on any cultural fingerprints that I could exploit so I could subjugate them to make their broad stereotype generalizations seem more authentic. I guess I'll go down to the grocery store to buy some cigarettes to think this over a bit more. Hey wait, Grocery Store....
it's called subtext: i don't get why the holocaust happened, _i_ would have left germany.
[23] Posted by: rob | April 17, 2007 1:15 PM
______________________________________________
Well gosh rob.....wake the F up. In germany, the germans confiscated your car, your money, and your telephones were tapped. Remember "one ringy dingy two ringy dingy..." they could listen to you attempt to book a flight on the next slow jumbo jet out. And remember, Americans weren't letting anybody across the border during much of Hiltler's outrageous stupid plan to take over the world. Were were they going to go in a hurry? Hmmmm?
Are you joking with that statement? "... _i_ would have left germany." Bwah ha ha ha ha
Wake up.
thanks for proving my point ham
I would have deflected the bullets with my ninja stars and then taken out the shooter with my nun chuks. Oh wait, that's not realistic.
He shot many more than 32 people.
Gothamist, thanks for a great summary of all of the headlines. I appreciate that it looks like you've taken your time in updating the story and not jumping to conclusions, unlike some of the commentary here.
to put the tuff guy (tm) mode in perspective, think about every time you've been on a train and some guy (or gal) starts acting crazy. or worse, like a crazy asshole. what do people do?
they sit there, ignore them, and wait for it to end. even if the crazy person is ripping on someone, generally speaking no one says or does anything unless it gets physical. even then...it's sad in some ways, but natural. a few months ago, i watched a super duper drunk guy (eastern european judging from his accent) fall on the tracks. three people ran over to help him on a very crowded train platform at jay st.
everyone else just watched. and actually backed away as well.
I'd like to meet all you Jack Bauer, Spiderman, MacGuyver types.
Read the obit on the prof that was barricading the door to a classroom while others jumped out of windows.
oh god what I wouldn't do for a reason to sue the pants of Drudge
this would be off the front page if jessica simpson shaved her head tonight.
anybody read those plays? oh boy.
while everyone wants to see the killer's image why put it here. it's in every media outlet acorss the nation. how about instead gather up some info on the victims and make a collage here and tell a little bit about them.
the profile of the killer was immediate to me yesterday before hearing anything about him on the news today. He's an upper middle class loner with severe mental disease and no self worth or esteem. he has been poorly guided by his family's old world values they expect the very best from him and nothing more. he has little to no friends and is socially awkward. he blames everything on someone else and takes no accountability for his actions.
with that said, and speaking of accountability, i know the admins of the school need to grieve as well, but they should all be terminated or step down effective immediately. there is absolutly no excuse for their complete disregard for the other students on campus, they sent an email memo? are you kidding? whoi the hell sends a memo about a killer shooting two students and then disappering into the crowds at the school? campus security could have locked down the entire school in 15 minutes. If they needed outside help, the local police, sherriff and state police could have and would have respoonded in less than 5 minutes.
remember 9/11? NYC was locked down in less than 1/2 hour after the first plane hit the WTC. no one was aloowed in or out via tunnels and bridges. airports were locked down... bus terminals, trian stations, subways... all cities and police forces post 9/11 have had the training and know how to lock down a city, campus, etc.
my tirade above is all about accountability. So, before we start blamng hollywood and video games perhaps the accountability lies with the kille's parents and virginia tech's management i.e. administation—their actions are unacceptable.
funny, I haven't read his entire play but sounds like he might of had a career in Hollywood.
like page out of hollywood and cleaver.
so he had little to no friend? big deal, that's half of NYC.
but as always, there's enough blame to go around,
AFTER THE FACT.
edEx, you're not quite getting it. These students are symbolic of a great sickness of the United States: ours is a nation of slaves.
Free men fight for their freedom. They don't let a 130 pound oriental nerd execute them by the dozen.
This killed executed 32 people using inferior weapons that rarely will kill a human with a single shot. He was untrained in the operation of a handgun.
Intelligent, responsible citizens, will risk their lives to protect those around them. Slaves however do nothing but avoid the masters whip, or in the case, the whip of liberal teachers and the government.
Nature will always produce a few freaks, and this killer was one of them. That we cannot prevent. The death of these 32 kids, save the 2 in the dorm, are their own fault. To think this loser was able to kill 10 kids in a filled classroom using a 9mm weapon is shocking.
This psycho killer has done nothing but point out how we as a people have become weak and subservient with no will to live. The mommy culture has taken over and any time bad things happen, the expectation is mommy will come and solve all problems.
Here's a quick piece of advice to anyone out there who values his freedom: Save yourself. Fight for your freedom and don't expect others to do it for you.
I bet if Erxyimachus was in that classroom he'd be shot dead too by that 130 pound freak. "Fighting for his freedom" and whatnot. You know why? the psycho had gunpowder and ballastics, basically mini rockets. those kids had books and pens. Eryximachus I honestly hope you are an ironic hipster being a dick and hope you don't believe anything you just wrote.
The school is really going to have a black name to it if it's found at fault for what happened.
No matter what or how big the school was it should have been lockdown until the guy was found.
There is a guy with a gun and all they could say was we though he left the campus???
Mea culpa: if you watched Keith Olbermann's Worst Person in the World tonight, I would be one of them. Again, I humbly apologize for any comments I may have made that were offensive. It wasn't my intention.
I just love these racist comments about Koreans and Korean culture, especially when the investigation is still ongoing and there are still dozens of unanswered questions. We don't even know what the motive was.
What do Koreans have to do with this? Why is being Korean relevant? The only people who keep bringing up this sick bastard's ethnic background are racist trolls in the blogosphere.
In any case, didn't he spend most of his life in the U.S.? He has more in common with the Columbine killers than anyone else.
The guy who killed those little girls in Amish Country last year was a white dude, but I don't believe anyone asked, "What is it with whites and pedophilia - I believe it is pervasive in your society?". Are white people simply entitled to go apeshit now and then? Why not bring up the race or culture issue when a white guy starts shooting up random people?
Hell, maybe "white society" created this monster. Ultimately, no one is responsible for the killer's actions other than the killer himself. His race is irrelevant, and this should be obvious, but he is no more representative of "Korean" culture than the white Americans who committed countless atrocities in the past 250 years are of "white/European" culture.
The whole racist remarks here at Gothamist are disgusting.
If anyone looked at past school shootings looked at who did them? where they all Asians?
I think not.
Eryximachus #45:
Thank you for entertaing us. That was some of the best drivel I have ever read. Worthy of an F as in you're a f ucking failure in life.
When was the last time you shot, legally, a 9mm semi-automatic fire arm (or any gun for that matter)? I'm willing to bet never.
Let me hold your hand thru this lesson:
A semi-auto means you can keep shooting (pulling trigger over and again) until the magazine is empty... reload and repeat (the gunman had hundreds of rounds on his person). You say people rarely die from 9mm gunshot wounds? F for False. At point-blank-range a gunshot wound from a 9mm handgun will most likely kill the target or seriously wound. All of these victims were shot at point-blank-range.
What you said above is nothing but sick, rambling nonsense, similar, to i'm sure, what the killer rambled in his lengthy suicide-diatribe. The murdered and injured are not martyrs as you so clearly try to prove, they're victims and hero's. They should all be mourned and honored with the highest level of respect from all of us.
Johann and those new to this site (and message boards in general the world over) who may be unfamiliar with how this works:
1) Some tragic news event occurs
2) One or two people express one or more of the following emotions: disgust, sadness, condolence, outrage.
3) One or two other people - using multiple names because they are cowards who wouldn't dare share these thoughts without the shield of anonymity - post racist or otherwise inflammatory comments in a perverse attempt to come off as funny, controversial, pithy, or, inexplicably, purposefully offensive.
4) A group of people, usually including those from #2, express outrage at #3, which gives #3 some (again, perverse) sense of validation, or acceptance, or (again, inexplicable) satisfaction.
We usually call those in #3 trolls, but that's being kind. I prefer to call them "motherfucking bottomfeeding dregs of humanity who I wouldn't lift a finger to help in a crisis."
Since that scenario probably won't present itself, however, probably the best tack is just to ignore them insofar as that is possibe.
Sorry you have to endure these cretins, but that's part and parcel of this free speech thing we signed up for long ago. Enjoy it while you can.
Hi,
Great blog!
I like the office view!
If you have time, please submit the view to my new blog: www.viewfromoffice.com and in return I’ll include a link to your blog!
Thanks!
I have no idea what you're trying to say and I'm quite certain the same can be said of you. Go back to sleep.
my heart goes out to the families of the victims, and a speedy recovery to the injured.
on another note the way the school handled the situation is a disgrace. sending out emails to the students that certain buildings are closed is a half assed job in my point of view. i just wonder what the campus police were doing at the time.
the gunman could of been taken out when he was reloading. it takes a well trained professional approximately 1.3 seconds to reload a handgun, and i highly doubt that this crazy fuck had a fraction of the training in order to achieve that speed especially since he supposedly bought the gun a few weeks ago.
I think that's why he brought two guns. Two guns are better than one. While he reloads one, he has the other ready to fire. Not that hard to do.
Yeah, because we all know Orientals have a secret third arm they can reload guns with. That's why the Japs took the Malay peninsula.
@tactical harry
having two guns makes it actually harder to aim and hit the intended target. assuming he had a 15 bullet clip he had to reload the guns at least once since there is no way he shot only two clips accurately holding two guns in his hand Hollywood style.
Who cares about aiming when your a crazed gunman?
He'll spray and pray. There's very little recoil from both those calibers.
They have aftermarket 30 round mags for the Glock, most don't trust them but they sell them.
If he shot each victim 3 times, he had a lot of ammo.
Don't need a third arm to reload, didn't you see way of the gun? You use what's ever available, your teeth, legs, anything.
This guy killed 30 plus people and wounded 20 plus. If people think their odds are good, I think his were better.
VCDL.
I think people should ask "WHY? Why is this kid is so ANGRY?" He might be a nutcase, a pyscopath, and need helps and all that stuff...but I think more. He is an Asian kid, the one everyone stereotypes to be the smart, nerdy kid that sit in the back of math class, so we should just neglect him and don't give a damn. He was probably taunted by many of his classmates for "CHING CHONG CHONG" or "small penis" jokes but people who are ignorant, to the point that he could not take anymore and have to take it out. This country has always been about black and white history. Who gives a shit about the chinks that help build the railroads and this nation? What about the Japanese people that sat in the back of the bus during the segregation era? I bet if people just took one moment to be nice to these "loner" people, shit like this might just happen less.
Dude, Cho Hui's plays suck so bad, the dude should have just offed himself. Seriously. If I wrote drivel like that at his age, I'd never have wanted to attract any attention to myself, And especially not eternal rememberance as the dude who killed a bunch of random people and left behind such crap as those plays.
Regardless, there is a point to my rambling. Long ago, before the news media ran month long 24 hour news coverage of these types of things, people with serious emotional and mental disorders simply killed themselves. Offer some misanthrope who's a nobody a chance at infamy, give him ideas on how to achieve that infamy, and you've got a recipe for disaster.
Also, god hates us all.
the plays depict the amount of hatred he carried all along...it shows his pain and suffering. it tells us a lot about the environment he grew up in and the tortures he had to undergo. all i can say is that we as a system have failed in providing this troubled and sensitive kid a safe home. We have failed to understand him, we have failed to look within and it is a shame that we still are ignorant of this. Please wake up and show some sensitivity, before any more innocent lives are lost.
they shouldnt have picked on him
lawman - it sounds to me like you're justifying his actions a little bit. Life ain't easy, my friend. Everyone endures hardship to some degree. Most everyone is disliked, teased, dumped, fired etc at some point. Some people are abused, some tortured, some endure the unthinkable (like for example the Holocaust survivor whom Cho murdered). Yes, we all should be kind and compassionate. But Cho was neither himself, rather he was a deranged and heartless sociopath. Simple as that.
I was on the bus yesterday and this guy was telling me about Cho . He said that the guy was Psychotic, and Crazy . I then explained the difference between the two as well as why I think he did it . [1] If a person is crazy, They are without sound of mind . They have lost the distinction between Reality,& Fantasy . [2] A person for whom is psychotic is a person with deep seeded thoughts of hate filled rage . They don't have to be nuts, They can be completely sane but with dark evil thoughts . [3] The reasons I think he did this to his classmates had to do with social standing . Virgina Tech is an exclusive school, You have a lot rich kids that go their . I know what some of you are thinking "What does that have to do with anything"? Think back to when you were in High school, I'm sure there were certain kids that were of a certain class that kept to "There own" . Cho was most likely teased for his isolated nature, The fact that he wasn't outgoing, Probably didn't have a girlfriend or didn't know how too approach them . He was eventually branded an outcast for those traits which lead him to rue the abuse his was receiving from them . Basically they teased him about everything under the sun ! So his response was to plan there end .
Most of you here are trying to give reasoms why he did this, but in the end the reasons are irrelevant. But spaeking of reasons, he obviously wanted us to study him and give him attention for what he has done. For that reason, stop thinking about the prick and pay tribute to the victims and mourn with their families.