However, the Governor’s office had asked TriData to begin corrections for the original addendum before receiving the families’ proposed addendum. Comments and corrections were taken in immediately and forwarded to TriData.
Gordon Hickey, Kaine’s press secretary, said in December that the newest addendum to the Governor’s Report began shortly after the original revision was released in late November.
Two university suggestions were changed in the newest revision. The university said Byers locked his own office, not Steger’s, contrary to the original report.
Another change involved two university officials that notified family members of the initial shootings in West Ambler-Johnston Hall. The newly revised report is changed to say that the two officials were not members of the decision-making Policy Group.
Kim O’Rourke, Steger’s chief of staff, called her son. Lisa Wilkes, an assistant vice president serving under then-Vice President Hyatt, informed her mother of the shootings. The original report named them as members of the Policy Group, but the university told TriData they were not.
However, a university document from March 2008 that can be found in the April 16 document database lists Policy Group members as well as support staff. It shows Wilkes and O’Rourke as official Policy Group members.
Input and research from family members of victims was also compiled for the families’ addendum, which only addressed the revised report’s Summary of Key Findings and Timeline of Events.
Hickey said the families’ addendum has been looked at by Kaine’s office and forwarded to TriData. He said he had not cross-referenced to check if the families’ concerns
were addressed by the TriData addendum.
The families’ addendum said two emergency response plans were in effect on the day of the shootings.
A 2005 Tech plan entitled “Campus Safety a Shared Responsibility,” is quoted by the addendum as mandating the Tech Police to issue a timely warning in the event of a “potential dangerous situation.”
It continues to point out that Tech Police did not send a warning following the first two shootings in West AJ.
The Governor’s Report indicates university administrators that had assembled in Burruss Hall sent out the warnings, but it said technical difficulties prevented them from sending a warning prior to the class change immediately before Cho’s shootings in Norris Hall.
A separate set of procedures, the Emergency Response Plan, also published in 2005, is discussed more thoroughly in the panel report. The families’ addendum said the university did not plan out several key elements of the ERP.
The ERP called for a vice president in charge, an emergency response coordinator and an emergency response resource group operating in addition to the Policy Group that convened in Burruss Hall.
The vice president in charge would have acted as a liaison between the groups, according to the ERP. However, no ERRG was convened. According to the ERP, it was the responsibility of the ERRG to issue a
campus-wide alert.
Neither the report nor the families’ addendum specifies whether the university ever appointed an ERRG. The families’ addendum said a representative from University Relations on the ERRG could have issued a warning. University spokesman Hincker sent out the initial warning, according to the Governor’s Report.
The latest version of the Governor’s Report says their actions “followed one of the policies but conflicted with the other regarding police authority to send out an alert. The mechanics of the alert system precluded the police from sending an alert directly.”
The families of Pryde and Peterson are now proceeding with civil suits against university officials and mental health professionals involved in the university response to the shootings and the treatment of Cho.
All other victims’ families were invited to meet with Kaine in December in Richmond, the last of three meetings guaranteed by the settlement they signed following the shootings.
A PowerPoint presentation of police briefings originally shown to family members in the fall of 2008 has been added to the April 16 archive accessible in Newman Library and the Library of Virginia.
Hickey called it a social event, saying it marked the end of Kaine’s term as governor, but that he would still be available should the families wish to speak with him.
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All letters to the editor must include a name, e-mail, daytime phone number and affiliation to Virginia Tech. Affiliation includes: year and major for students; position and department for faculty and staff; current city for alumni and parents.
I deem that it would be most beneficial, if someone within the Virginia Tech administration would explain the reason(s)/rationale for the obscene student-notification lag time on that unfortunate April day. What justified concealing the first murders from students until the greater massacre later that April 16th morning?
The families are justified in seeking damages, answers and not being satisfied with the administrations status quo!
We are all Hokies; therefore, as students we should be accorded notification within five minutes of any murder(s) on campus, period. I pray for the victims of Techs seemingly dereliction of duty, and may they rest in peace!
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I obviously understand the parents' emotions behind these law suits. However, what exactly will money do to alleviate their loss? I just don't get it. Collect a few million, and then what? I don't see what that does in the long run or what it solves.
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they want someone to be held accountable. just like in business, if something absolutely horrible happened, they would fire someone...tech just hasn't gotten that memo
furthermore, the other families that settled for $100,000...it's just insulting, knowing that. how much were the families out (in tuition and fees) add to that the lost opportunity cost had they gotten a job of the students that would have graduated...$100,000 is nothing less than insulting! get ready, Steger...you're going to lose! clearly, tech has put the price on a human life of almost $0.00
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Its puzzling that one would concentrate on the financial aspect of the equation, as opposed to focusing on the absolutely deplorable act of the administration glossing over the lack of notification for the students. Compounding the problem is the fact that no one within the administration suffered the shame of accountability. Ostensibly, the lack of notification and how the administration handled the situation are what opened the university up to potential liability, and that liability is warranted in having a huge financial component.
I concur, money will not alleviate the families losses, but that is merely a sidebar. In my humble opinion, the financial aspect of redress is meant to be punitive, and hopefully foster greater incentive for expedient student notifications and greater administration accountability in the future. That having been said, and at the risk of further presumptuousness, I think the families are seeking out a truthful answer as to why the students (and their children) werent notified of the earlier murders until it was too late. Maybe, somewhere deep down inside, the families think that had a notification went out in a timely manner, their love ones might possibly be here today. I pray for the families, and may they attain the evident catharsis they need.
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On 4/15 VTech web site had its policy for campus alert in case of emergency which used of a immediate campus wide siren, loudspeakers, radio emergency alert, lockdown procedure, etc. There was a prior drill. It was also all documented in prior issues of this paper. VTech simply failed to follow its own policy. Case closed. $ is to punish defendants - but they all have huge ins policies!
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The victims are Cho's, not Tech's, and we should always remember that distinction. While I agree that shining a light on the responsiveness of the university to all of the collective events leading to Norris Hall will result in better procedure and policy going forward, it does not shift the blame from the actual perpetrator.
No one knows if a disruption in the routine of students that day would have prevented or reduced the number of victims. A possible thwarting of his original plan could have led to an even more horrific conclusion. What if his contingency plan was a packed auditorium? MCB 100? Squires?
While we can and should learn from past mistakes, we cannot shift blame from a mass murderer to an administration for these victims. While we can and should respond more appropriately and with better understanding to events similar to those leading up to that day in April, these students were victims of Cho, mass murderer, no one else.
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"It was also announced that Chos parents had been worried that he might be suicidal. Out of concern for Cho, Virginia Tech Police asked him to speak with a counselor. An order was obtained, and Cho was taken to a mental health facility in late 2005, Flinchum said."
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The colossal missteps and subsequent, flagrant glossing-over of the facts are mindboggling, as well as inexcusable!
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So anyone suspected of being suicidal should be jailed or restrained in case they turn out to be mass murderers?
Really?
You could have cited a better harbinger than a suicidal proclivity.
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