<p>ERIN’s Mom - well said.</p>
<p>Has this already been discussed? One of the young men who was shot probably saved his own life; the Eagle Scout tied an electrical cord around his bleeding thigh to make a tourniquet.</p>
<p>“Instructors and others at VT identified the shooter as “troubled” and made attempts to get him professional help. Where were his parents? Surely, they were aware that their son was “troubled” and possibly a danger to himself or others.”</p>
<p>Even if his parents were aware that he was troubled (and based on one of his plays, I imagine he had a very troubled relationship with them), they could not force him into treatment. They could be very worried, but would not be able to coerce him into seeing a therapist. </p>
<p>As I’ve seen described in media reports, his behavior reminds me of that of a young man who once worked with a company that I was consulting with. The young man had been such an exemplary person, including volunteering with children, that he had been written about in a major newspaper column.</p>
<p>The company noticed that his behavior changed a great deal. He seemed paranoid among other things. They asked me to talk to him since I have a doctorate in psychology. I wasn’t doing an official evaluation, just seeing if in my judgment, the fears of his employers were justified.</p>
<p>He and I met and had coffee together, and I noticed several behaviors that were alarming. He didn’t really make eye contact. He chose his words extremely carefully with the kind of care that I have seen when people are hearing voices or are suffering from severe paranoia (such as if they think they can hear people’s thoughts, and those thoughts reveal that the other person is hating them or believes they do obscene acts). </p>
<p>Unfortunately, there wasn’t anything that the company could do to force the young man into treatment because he was handling his job assignments reasonably well.</p>
<p>About 3 months later, he shot and injured a female coworker in the company’s parking lot. In the past, they had been platonic friends, but apparently he turned against her. He ended up being released on bail, and she ended up having to go into hiding for fear that he was stalking her.</p>
<p>I don’t know what ended up happening to him. I suspect his behavior reflected either the onset of paranoid schizophrenia (which tends to have onset in late teens, early 20s) or was a result of drug use.</p>
<p>From CNN. I honestly don’t get this kind of thinking. Why loathe people who are concerned when assault weapons can be easily bought and used to kill dozens of people?</p>
<p>"Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine said he wasn’t interested in arguments about gun control.</p>
<p>“People who want to take this within 24 hours of the event and make it their political hobby horse to ride, I’ve got nothing but loathing for them,” Kaine said at a Tuesday evening news conference.</p>
<p>“To those who want to try to make this into some little crusade, I say: Take that elsewhere. Let this community deal with grieving individuals and be sensitive to those needs.”'</p>
<p>Jeepmom.<br>
I worked as a crisis intervention/ suicide prevention expert for a number of years signing involuntary committment papers for my large metropolitan district. You have done an excellent job in describing the difficulties faced when dealing with the rights of the mentally ill. This is a horrendously sad series of events but until the shooter actually threatened and made a move to harm someone there was nothing anyone could have legally done.</p>
<p>Conyat, that is about all anyone can do…be alert enough after something happens and have the skills to react. Now I’m thinking this should be mandatory at any school…safety classes…CPR, emergency reaction. They already have fire drills (heck, we had bomb drills in elem school!). I’m realizing right now that I don’t know half about this stuff, and I should!</p>
<p>Our HS had a drill at our local airport in which they simulated an airplane malfunction/terrorist attack. It serves not only as an instructional tool for the kids, who acted as passengers, but also a number of the emergency response agencies in the area, some from 50 or more miles away. While we can’t go about life as if this is going to happen at any moment, it’s nice to at least feel that we CAN react.</p>
<p>Since we live in earthquake country, our garage has lots of the needful things…I’m just not sure how one goes about preparing for the immediacy of it all.</p>
<p>Erins mom. The story of the young man who knew enough to apply a pressure tourniquet was enough to mobilize me to make sure my kids now get first aid certification.</p>
<p>Probably the best interview I have seen was on Newshour:
<a href=“http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/law/jan-june07/killer_04-17.html[/url]”>http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/law/jan-june07/killer_04-17.html</a>.</p>
<p>Oh gosh, watching the parents of the victims during these interviews is just heart wrenching.</p>
<p>The murderer had a constitutional right to bear arms…the murderer had a constitutionaly protected right to free speech in this case in the form of disturbing bordering on insane plays…the murderer did not have a constitutional right to attend Virginia Tech…the behavior he manifested would have gotten him expelled from any public high school in the country. When the innocent victims enrolled at Virgina Tech they surrendered certain rights of their own, such as the right to carry arms to defend themselves, and they placed their safety in the hands of the institution. They also were paying significant amounts of money for the enviroment in which to learn and live. They had a right to live in safety. Virgina Tech failed them in every possible way, and it is a certainty that the institution will be held accountable for that failure. All this nonsense about the crime scene and following leads…the kids and the teachers are dead as is the muderer…a little late to suddenly become efficient for the administration and the campus police…they completely failed to protect the individuals under their care…today was mostly about protecting the institutions and that is sad…it should be about those who were tragically lost and their families</p>
<p>This may already have been mentioned but one of the students, Rachael Elizabeth Hill, was in the dorm when the shooter killed the first two students. She called her parents to tell them she was ok. She then left the dorm and went to class where she was killed. Those questioning the speed of University’s actions may use this as an example to support their arguments.</p>
<p>razorsharp—i heard about her; she left her building when they let up on the lockdown at the dorm. I was wondering where she was killed. All that was said that when they released everyone from the lockdown that another student was killed. </p>
<p>Thanks for reminding me.</p>
<p>Another group of people whom my heart goes out to. This is from the NY Times. I wonder if the high school students and others who get their kicks by bullying Asians (as we can see in another thread on this board) will use this as an excuse to escalate their bullying.</p>
<p>"Asian-American students at Virginia Tech reacted to news about the gunman’s identity with shock and some anxiety about a possible backlash.</p>
<p>“My parents are actually worried about retaliation against Asians,” said Lyu Boaz, a third-year accounting student who was born in South Korea and became an American citizen a year ago. “After 9/11, a lot of Arabs were attacked for that reason.”</p>
<p>Mr. Boaz, a resident adviser at Pritchard Hall, said many Korean-American students left campus immediately. Parents of other Korean-American students were preparing to pick up their children this afternoon and take them home. "</p>
<p>sax - I am with you there. One could argue that it’s more important than AP Calculus in our public High Schools (not that one should replace the other), but couldn’t this replace our graduation requirement of a computer/tech/home ec/PE class?</p>
<p>Maybe we need to replace some of the “required” (i.e. non-academic) classes with survival skills. How is this any less important than a class where you have a mechanical baby to take care of? </p>
<p>Times change, and I think it should be a priority to teach someone how to survive rather than how to type or how to deal with a baby they shouldn’t even be having anyway. Naive, and not PC, I know, but is it any worse than those of us who went thru the bomb drills as little kiddies in the 60’s-70’s? Adapt and overcome.</p>
<p>For heaven’s sake, I never said the mentally ill didn’t have rights. In fact, whoever made that comment went directly <em>against</em> the tone of my post, which I resent. Please read more carefully.</p>
<p>I SERIOUSLY doubt there will be any retaliation against Asian people. Unlike 9-11 when many Arabs were “persecuted” and “attacked” this debacle was the actions of a single psychopath, not many people from the same race.</p>
<p>I saw an interesting post on a board that said that the killer’s parents are dry cleaners and their occupation may be related to his behavior. It referenced this study:
“Tetrachloroethylene is a solvent used in dry cleaning with reported neurotoxic effects. Using proportional hazard methods, we examined the relationship between parental occupation as a dry cleaner and risk for schizophrenia in a prospective population-based cohort of 88,829 offspring born in Jerusalem from 1964 through 1976, followed from birth to age 21-33 years. Of 144 offspring whose parents were dry cleaners, 4 developed schizophrenia. We observed an increased incidence of schizophrenia in offspring of parents who were dry cleaners (RR=3.4, 95% CI, 1.3-9.2, p=0.01). Tetrachloroethylene exposure warrants further investigation as a risk factor for schizophrenia.”
<a href=“Tetrachloroethylene exposure and risk of schizophrenia: offspring of dry cleaners in a population birth cohort, preliminary findings - PubMed”>Tetrachloroethylene exposure and risk of schizophrenia: offspring of dry cleaners in a population birth cohort, preliminary findings - PubMed;
<p>Kent State,
South Korean officials have expressed concerns about retaliation. I think the concerns are justified. Prejudiced people use any excuse to harm or threaten the targets of their prejudice.</p>
<p>"AP - SEOUL, South Korea – South Korea’s Foreign Ministry said Tuesday the government hoped the Virginia Tech shootings, allegedly carried out by a 23-year-old South Korean native, would not “stir up racial prejudice or confrontation…</p>
<p>Kim Min-kyung, a South Korean student at Virginia Tech reached by telephone from Seoul, said there were some 500 Koreans at the school, including Korean-Americans. She said she had never met the shooter Cho. Fearing retaliation, she said South Korean students were gathering in groups “as it could be dangerous.” </p>
<p>South Korean diplomats were traveling to the site of the shooting, Foreign Ministry spokesman Cho Hee-yong said. "</p>
<p>This paragraph was particularly interesting:</p>
<p>“Despite being technically a state of war for decades against North Korea, South Korea is a country where citizens are banned from privately owning guns and where no school shootings are known to have occurred.”
<a href=“http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/world/20070417-1108-virginiatech-skorea.html[/url]”>http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/world/20070417-1108-virginiatech-skorea.html</a></p>
<p>
This awful incident actually exposes some of the fallacy behind the ‘assault weapons’ ban proponents. It doesn’t take an ‘assault weapon’ to kill dozens of people. It doesn’t even take a gun (witness the Oklahoma City bombing or the plane hijackings). It seems that those most for the assault weapons ban are the ones who know the least about guns and I think this is one of the reasons they can’t understand some of the opposition to the ban. The term ‘assault weapon’ is actually quite difficult to even define. </p>
<p>I assume that the governor’s ‘loathing’ is more about some people immediately using this incident to further their own agendas - many of which would have done nothing to avoid this incident (such as an assault weapons ban) and are detracting from where the focus should be - why the killer did this.</p>
<p>Northstarmom…you are confusing the private and the public sectors…different rules different laws…Viginia Tech is a public institution and could have expelled this sociopath at any time…he could have sought redress but he would have been gone…ever been to Korea? i have often…i don’t care if you have 10 dr’s you would be treated as a 3rd class citizen just because you are a woman…careful who you rush to defend…and I think I remember lots of American’s dying to defend them so I wouldn’t feel too bad…</p>