April 16, 2007

• Virginia Tech Shooting Rampage

  I was asked by spinksy for my thoughts on the latest campus killing spree, the most destructive one in U.S. history.  I was listening to NPR this morning and caught some early reports.  When Greyfox got here (brought us supplies to save me a trip to town, and got a beard trim to save himself from looking like Gabby Hayes) we checked Google News for info, but it was apparent that the central facts, such as the shooter’s identity, wouldn’t be immediately available, and his motive might never be known for certain.

  After Greyfox left, I looked for more news, and found Planet Blacksburg, a website run by journalism students at VA Tech.  That is where I got most of the info I pieced together in the summary below, which I prepared so I could relay it to Greyfox when he calls me after 9 tonight.  As of  7 PM, this is what I had learned and a little bit of what I surmised from it:

  At 7:15 AM, the lone gunman, described as an Asian male about nineteen years old, entered West Ambler Johnston Hall, a co-ed dorm, where he shot two people, a male and a female.  By early evening it was confirmed that both were killed, and the man was identified as Resident Advisor Ryan Clark.

  Kevin Tosh, reporting on PlanetBlacksburg.com, drew the obvious comparison with the Columbine shootings in 1999, but also mentioned the 1966 Texas Tower incident.

  Campus security personnel assumed that the dorm shootings were a “domestic dispute,” and believed that the shooter had fled the campus.  No warnings were issued for more than two hours, when an email was sent. It announced a shooting had occurred at the dorm, police were on the scene and urged anyone in the university community to “be cautious” and contact police if they saw anything suspicious or had information on the case.

  About twenty minutes after the email, and nearly two and a half hours after the dorm shootings, the doors were chained shut at Norris Hall, a classroom building where subjects as diverse as physics, engineering and German are taught.  Presumably, it was the shooter who chained the doors.

  Ruiqi Zhang, a junior computer engineering major, experienced the incident first hand in his class on the second floor of Norris.

  “A student rushed in and told everybody to get down,” said Zhang. “We put a table against the door and when the gunman tried to shoulder his way in and when he saw that he couldn’t, he put two shots through the door.

  “It was the scariest moment of my life.”

  Gene Cole, who has worked as a housekeeper for more than 20 years at Virginia Tech, saw bloodied hallways and also a hint of what the suspect looked like. Cole noted that the man had a hat on and was wielding a black automatic handgun.

  People in the building reported hearing about thirty shots in a period of a minute and a half.  This implies that the shooter was taking aim, not just shooting wildly.  The body count tends to support that.

  Ten minutes after the shooting started at Norris Hall, a second email warned people to take cover, that a gunman was loose on campus.

  After the shooting was over, people in the building were ordered by law enforcement to remain in place  for another two hours before police determined that the shooter had killed himself.  Then people were allowed to leave the building.

  Witnesses said that shootings took place in more than one classroom.  By 1 PM, campus security personnel had been joined by local and state police and the FBI.  By 5 PM, ATF agents were on scene.  One of the feds speculated that the “suspect” indicated premeditation by chaining the doors shut.  Duh.  A little obvious, I think, and more that a little irrelevant, if the man has already killed himself.  There will be no trial, unless he is found to have had accomplices.

  Derek O’dell, a sophomore biology major was in a classroom on the second floor of Norris Hall when the shooter came in and began to shoot. He let off a full round [clip or magazine, I suppose he meant] before leaving. O’dell was one of 10-15 people shot in the class, and was hit in his upper arm. According to O’dell, the shooter was an Asian male in his twenties wearing a maroon hat and a black coat.

  Unconfirmed reports from students early in the afternoon suggested that the shooter had been looking for his girlfriend and her new boyfriend.

  Student onlookers also reported that one and possibly two people had been arrested, even though all official reports have said that the shooter was identified and had killed himself.

  My thoughts:

  I’m about halfway with John McCain, who said the shooting
  rampage at Virginia Tech University does not change his views on the
  Second Amendment, “except to make sure that these kinds of weapons
  don’t fall into the hands of bad people.”  “Bad people” is a facile, meaningless, weasely phrase, meant, I am sure, as a concession to gun-control advocates.  Charles Whitman, the Texas Tower shooter, was an upstanding, respected veteran who just happened to have a brain tumor.  Let’s make sure we keep guns out of the hands of folks with brain tumors, too.

  A half dozen or more reports from universities across the country said that people on their campuses were frightened following the shooting spree.  I say that if they weren’t frightened beforehand, they certainly have no more reason now to be scared.  Yes, it’s possible that another jilted loser or two will be inspired to go gun people down, but they are just as likely to go looking for their girl friends’ new lovers in insurance offices or banks as in college.  Let’s all dive under our desks now, okay?

  I more or less summarized my thoughts above as I gathered the data:  he went armed and prepared, he knew how to shoot and he took time to aim.  I might have more thoughts, or more relevant and to-the-point thoughts when I learn more details.  Did he find the people he was looking for, or did he come unglued and shoot everyone in sight out of frustration because he didn’t find them?  Was that speculation about the girlfriend and her new boyfriend a false report?  My uppermost thought at this time is that I want to know more about the shooter and his motivations.

  This is just one of many incidents.  It doesn’t do anything to change my view of humanity.  It doesn’t scare me or aggrieve me.  It interests me and it concerns me.  I think that we as a society can find better ways to deal with these incidents.  Is it a natural human trait to crave drama and to feed each other’s fears and fascination with violence?  If so, it is not a universal trait.  It is an unevolved trait, and it is perpetuated and magnified by journalists who want to satisfy our curiosity while they increase their own ratings and circulation figures.

  I won’t prejudge today’s shooter, and even after I learn whatever facts might come out about him and his reasons for his actions today, I will not judge him.  In my view Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold weren’t evil.  Their actions were destructive and they destroyed themselves, and they were set upon their path by circumstances that might have been different had someone in their lives loved them better.  Charles Whitman wasn’t evil.  His mind was disordered because his brain was diseased.  Nobody even knew he was ill until the autopsy. 

  I just won’t judge.  I won’t judge, and I won’t fear.  I won’t give up my guns, either, not without a fight.  I consider them to be survival equipment, useful tools.  What I will do is love, everyone in general and most especially those with whom I come into contact.  That’s the course that feels appropriate for me.
  

  • 11:45 pm
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