Virginia Tech President Charles Steger, former Vice President James Hyatt, and several university mental health professionals will have to face trial in suits brought in relation to the April 16, 2007 campus shootings.
Judge William Alexander, of Franklin County, sent out his rulings last Tuesday on several motions argued in a December hearing. He ruled that many university officials originally named in identical suits filed by two victims’ families were covered by the state’s sovereign immunity and had no stated duty to warn students of the first two shootings on campus.
The families of victims Julia Pryde and Erin Peterson brought the charges against many university officials on April 16, 2009, each seeking $10 million in damages after their daughters were killed in Norris Hall during Seung Hui Cho’s April 16, 2007 shootings on Tech’s campus
Charges against Provost Mark McNamee, university spokesman Larry Hincker, Dean of Undergraduate Education David Ford, and Executive Director of Government Relations Ralph Byers have been dismissed. Alexander ruled that sufficient allegations of gross negligence had not been made against these officials, as they were simply named as members of the policy group.
Alexander ruled Steger and Hyatt were covered by Virginia’s sovereign immunity, but that they had a duty to warn the students of the shootings, and charges against them will move to trial.
Sovereign immunity makes government officials immune from suit if they are performing their prescribed duties. Alexander ruled the plaintiffs have presented enough evidence to pursue charges of gross negligence against Steger and Hyatt.
Charges against former Cook Counseling Center director Robert Miller will also move to trial. Alexander’s ruling said he and Cook employees Cathye Betzel and Sherry Lynch Conrad were not covered by sovereign immunity. He also said they had a duty to care for the mental health of shooter Seung-Hui Cho and protect other students on campus.
Miller located Cho’s mental health records in his home in July 2009. They had previously been labeled as missing by the university. Ed McNelis, Miller’s attorney, released a statement in response to the ruling.
“While we respectfully disagree with the court’s ruling, we remain confident that the facts will show that the therapists at the Cook Counseling Center were not negligent and were not the cause of the tragedy that occurred some 16 months after Mr. Cho was treated at the Cook Counseling Center,” McNelis said. Charges against employees of the New River Valley Community Services Board were dismissed.
A trial date has yet to be set.
As legal battles proceed, many families who signed a settlement with the state are still searching for facts about the shootings.
More than a month after the original release of a revised Governor’s Panel report on the April 16 shootings on Tech’s campus, an addendum to the revision was published, but several families say their suggestions were not taken into account.
The new edition of the report says after initial publication of the original, “a few errors or unclear points were reported,” and the addendum attempts to correct those errors. TriData, an independent information systems company, completed the revision and addendum.
Several families affected by the April 16 shootings created a separate addendum to the Governor’s Panel report on the shootings that alleges the university did not follow its own emergency response procedures.
The families’ addendum, which has been obtained by the Collegiate Times, was sent to Gov. Tim Kaine on Jan. 1 by the family of Norris Hall victim Michael Pohle Jr. a month after Kaine released a revised version of the original Governor’s Panel report on the shootings. The addendum also cited the efforts of family members Michael Bishop and Suzanne Grimes.
Some families were unhappy that the original panel was not reconvened to revise the report. Instead, TriData compiled the revisions. According to e-mails obtained by the Collegiate Times, the TriData
addendum was in the works prior to the families sending their addendum.
“We had also hoped that by providing factual input to this addendum to the original panel report we would take further important steps through the grieving process,” the introduction of the families’ addendum said. “All along, we wanted to collaborate face to face with panel members and TriData personnel in creating the most thorough accounting of that day. Unfortunately, that opportunity never came, in our opinion, as our requests were rejected.”
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.