Correcting the record on the Virginia Tech shootings
Records released through FOIA contradict officials’ earlier statements about timeline of broadcast warnings; students create records archive
When Virginia Tech reached a settlement with the families of the victims of Seung-Hui Cho’s shooting spree in April 2007, it agreed to make public some of the key details of the horrific event. According to a report in the Richmond Times-Dispatch, the university said it would keep confidential notes from an emergency meeting of senior officials, as well as a box full of records about Cho, including concerned e-mails from one of Cho’s professors. Tech relented somewhat a few days after the T-D’s report ran, but many important documents remain as mysterious as what went on in Cho’s mind that day.
In addition, further digging by reporters into the documents that were released revealed discrepancies between when administrators said they first knew that a shooter remained at large, and when that message was broadcast to the campus.
Governor Timothy M. Kaine met with families of the victims in November to discuss the discrepancies. For instance, according to the Times-Dispatch, records revealed that Montgomery County officials locked down Blacksburg schools more than 30 minutes before Tech officials sent out a warning to students about the shooting.
In December, Tech officials also revealed that the veterinary school and the university’s continuing and professional education center were shut down before the general advisory was issued.
Meanwhile, newspapers across the state urged Kaine to ask that the report of the panel convened to study the Tech shootings be amended or corrected to address the new-found evidence.
“The governor should not let time, and a wish for closure, sweep the facts under the rug,” the Daily Press opined.
Virginia Tech student Justin Harrison posted rougly 6,000 pages of documents obtained from the school through a Freedom of Information Act request Harrison told the Associated Press he wants people to read for themselves what happened that bleak day.
The records are posted at www.prevailarchive.org/archive, which noted that “As of November 13, 2008, University Relations has not made a decision as to whether or not the electronic archive(s) [required as part of the school settlement with the victims’ families] will be made available to the public.”