Next week’s initial hearings in identical lawsuits from two families of April 16, 2007, shooting victims will determine whether the university officials named as defendants are covered by Virginia’s sovereign immunity.
The families of Julia Pryde and Erin Peterson, who were shot and killed by Seung-Hui Cho in Norris Hall, filed the suits in April seeking to “reveal truths” about the shootings and its aftermath. The suit’s first hearings are scheduled for Dec. 14 and 15 in Montgomery County Circuit Court.
The sovereign immunity statute protects state employees from being sued, but a judge can disregard it. It also does not apply for actions taken outside the scope of the employee’s job position.
Each family is seeking $10 million in damages. Eight university officials are named in the suit, including President Charles Steger, former Executive Vice President James Hyatt, Provost Mark McNamee and Vice President for University Relations Larry Hincker.
Additionally, Virginia Tech Police Chief Wendell Flinchum, five employees of the Cook Counseling Center and two members of the New River Valley Community Services Board are also named as defendants.
Robert Hall, attorney for the Peterson and Pryde families, said the defendants have filed two motions seeking to dismiss the suits.
“The general theme for the hearings is that the defendants contend everyone gets off on sovereign immunity, and that even if they don’t there was no reason to anticipate the criminal misconduct of a third person,” Hall said. “Even though there are some earlier Virginia cases that give them the basis for their arguments, the judge is going to have to decide whether those are applicable.”
Hall said another defendant motion will claim the officials were not responsible for anticipating the violent acts.
“I don’t anticipate that the cases will come to an end on these motions, but they’re serious motions,” Hall said.
He said what the motion calls “high-ranking state officials” should not be protected by absolute immunity, and pointed out less than a quarter of Steger’s compensation package comes from state funds.
In 2007, Steger was paid $169,339 of state funds, but received $270,000 from “private sources,” according to the Chronicle for Higher Education’s executive compensation database.
Steger also received $200,000 in deferred compensation and a $21,973 performance bonus.
“I have trouble with a high-ranking government official getting that kind of money from private sources and still being called a government official,” Hall said.
On the second motion, Hall counters that the university had previously anticipated potential violent situations and locked down the university.
He specifically cited William Morva’s escape from a nearby prison in August 2006 as an instance where the university sent a warning to students of potential danger and locked down the Tech campus.
A recently released addendum to the Governor’s Panel Report on the shootings featured an expanded timeline of the day’s events.
The report, added to and corrected by independent information systems company TriData following requests for a corrected report by victims’ families, is still not a complete account of the shootings according to Michael Pohle, whose son Michael Pohle Jr. was killed in Norris Hall.
Families asked Gov. Tim Kaine to reconvene the original panel following the discovery of Cho’s mental health records at the home of former Cook Counseling Center Director Robert Miller.
Kaine refused to reconvene the panel, but collected suggestions from family members and university officials to be compiled by TriData.
“We were allowed to submit corrections,” Pohle said. “There was no opportunity to review a draft of what they were planning to send out.”
Pohle said even the revised report omits discussion of the emergency preparedness policies that were in place at the time.
“Neither the original panel report, nor this addendum adequately, or even barely at all, assessed the university’s adherence to procedures they had in place,” Pohle said. “The panel report focused far more on changing laws, which is good, but they failed to cover in any detail existing law.”
Hall also plans to address university policies that he said should have governed the school’s response to the first two shootings in West Ambler-Johnston Hall.
“There were policies in place,” Hall said. “But originally we were told there weren’t any.”
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While some may believe it is necessary to continue to "stir" the debate about the tragic events of April 16, I believe it is time to put the issue to rest. For those of us who were here on that snowy morning in 2007 the memories of those who were killed will never leave us, the stories of heroism will never be forgotten, and the emotions we felt will never really go away. Hind sight is 20/20. Of course it is easy to point fingers, to blame President Steger or other members of the administration. But we all know the one person who is really to blame for this. I agree some mistakes may have been made, but to say that this was someone's fault is just wrong. No one was, or ever is, prepared tragedy.
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I totally agree.
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University officials did not even follow the Campus and Workplace Violence Prevention Policy passed by the BOV back in 2005. That policy states a student found to be stalking someone can be permanently suspended and barred from campus. This of course should have happened to Cho based on his stalking of at least one (but I think two, based on my reading) student. VT failed to follow their own disciplinary action set forth in their own policy. What a surprise.
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