The full report of the Virginia Tech Review Panel regarding the massacre of students and faculty members by Seung Hui Cho has been released.
On April 16, 2007, Seung Hui Cho killed 32 students and faculty, wounded 17, and shot himself. While clearly the fault lies with Cho, an independent investigation was conducted to see if there were any lessons that we could learn so that these tragedies might be prevented in the future.
This BBC article gives a good summary of the results of the report, but some findings seem to be that:
- Cho's parents did not make clear to the university his mental health problems
- Virginia Tech and state health workers did not intervene effectively to take corrective action when repeated evidence of Cho's problems were exhibited
- There was a critical failure of the emergency communication process by the university and campus police
- Virginia's mental health laws are flawed and mental health services are inadequate
- emergency medical care was very effective
Washington Post columnist Marc Fisher asked a very reasonable and pointed question regarding privacy laws that do more harm than good:
Here's what I don't get. In the hundreds of interviews the panel conducted, why didn't they ask all those people whose job it is to care for students one question: How would you have handled Cho if you had let your conscience, not privacy laws, guide you?
It also seems unfortunate that Cho's high school, which recognized his mental health problems and intervened to give him special assistance, tutoring, and programs so that he could graduate high school, did not tell Virginia Tech about Cho's situation. As quoted in this article about Cho's early childhood:
"What the admissions staff at Virginia Tech did not see were the special accommodations that propped up Cho and his grades," including private sessions with teachers that spared him public speaking...
Strangely, the report did not talk about religion.
Hopefully the report's findings will be heeded by universities, governments, and mental health workers, to help prevent something like that from happening again. But we all should not forget what happened on that tragic day.