Judge William Alexander oversees the court. (Photo courtesy of AP Pool)
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On the morning of April 16, 2007, two students — one male and one female — were shot in a West Ambler-Johnston Hall dorm room. As Virginia Tech’s top officials gathered in Burruss Hall, one of the students was dead and the other was mortally wounded.
Now, nearly five years later, a jury is listening to arguments over what those officials knew and whether their decisions put lives at risk on Tech’s campus.
The actions of those officials — known as the policy group — are at the center of the trial that will decide whether Tech took adequate steps to protect the campus in the time between Seung-Hui Cho’s shooting of two students in West AJ and his shooting in Norris Hall two-and-a-half hours later that killed 30 people and injured 17 more.
All but two of the families settled with the state.
However, the families of Erin Peterson and Julia Pryde — two students who died in the Norris Hall shootings — refused the settlement and filed matching civil suits against the university. The suits originally included many individual university officials, but they have all been dropped, leaving the state to defend the university’s actions.
Last week, the plaintiffs presented their arguments, and this week the defense is making its argument after a motion to dismiss the case was denied by Judge William Alexander Monday morning.
The plaintiffs claim the university was negligent, failing to uphold its duty to protect students by not alerting the campus community to the initial shootings in West Ambler-Johnston Hall.
As the defense team — attorneys from the Virginia attorney general’s office representing the university — called its witnesses Monday, the central assertion was that police and university officials acted responsibly based on the information available to them.
Throughout Monday’s proceedings the plaintiffs’ legal team challenged police and university officials as to whether the appropriate decisions were made based on the information being discovered at the time.
Specifically, the sides battled over whether police had enough information to label the West AJ shootings an isolated incident and whether the policy group’s notification to the campus community was adequately informative and timely.
Among Monday’s witnesses were Tech Vice President for Student Affairs Ed Spencer and Tech General Counsel Kay Heidbreder.
A version of this article appeared in the Mar 13 issue of the Collegiate Times.
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My thoughts:
- I love the last part of this article...
Plaintiff attorney: Why did you withhold info about the shooting?
Heidbreder: ... but we specified that further info would be released when it became available.
Plaintiff attorney: the information you already had.
- Let this be a lesson to us. The university (or any group in this type of position) will intentionally withhold information if they think it will: prevent panic, cover their butt, or some other strategic reason. Always remember that these email notices from police/universities might not be telling you the whole truth.
- Let's be realistic here. Steger (et al) didn't WANT people to die. Of course their hearts were in the right place. There might have been some CYA in there, but they were trying to do the right thing (stop panic, but keep people alert)
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That guy's thoughts again...
- Also, looking at the timeline from the governor’s report; It took too long to send out the notification. No if ands or butts about it ... stabbing, shooting, domestic, crazy guy... It took too long! 30 minutes sooner and I may not be able to say that statement (well… 30 minutes sooner it would be borderline late).
- So then the question is... who is “responsible” (if anyone... besides cho of course). My interpretation of this trial is that IF sending out a late notification is considered negligent (or thus directly responsible), then should the university/state be punished? The point would be to "punish" the university so that they would not make the mistake again, i.e. do it right next time. (for the sake of argument, let’s say the $10mil - or $100k goes directly to charity - I don't want to argue about the victim's family profiting from this or not - that's a different discussion).
- My personal opinion is that maybe the late notification was negligent (at least in some ways). Does the state deserve to be punished for it... I say maybe. (that's what the trial is supposed to determine). But the negative publicity is kind of a punishment. AND, the notification system has been drastically improved since this event.
- Conclusion: None. This is a bad situation all around. Sound off in the comments. I’d like to see if I’m off base for my opinions.
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"Zenobia Hikes, then the vice president for student affairs, objected".
Wrong! She was new to the group, and simply relaying information from Chief Flinchum's office. Funny what facts trials unearth.
http://www.roanoke.com/news/breaking/wb/306188
Steger, Flinchum, Spencer, and Heidbreder continue to blame others while shirking their complicity. Thank-you, Prof. Roy and others, for standing up for the late VP Hikes. You are the true leaders of this campus, the ones who tried to help the perpetrator before the tragedy, and the ones who defend those Hokies now at rest.
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Hall exemplifies the worst aspects of the legal profession. He knows he can't reconstruct the facts in his favor, so he tries to influence the outcome with innuendo..."the information you already had".
One question that isn't answered by the article; Did Peterson and/or Pryde have their cell phones on and/or were logged into their e-mail accounts at all times or any time that morning prior to entering Norris? An informed decision can only be made if you are available to being informed.
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In what should be obvious at this point is that nothing new came out of this trial. The state report stands, the University and its officials did what they felt best based on the information on hand. 20/20 hindsight changes everyone's perspective. These families might get 100K each but I am just not seeing it and to what purpose? This trial won't set any precedent or solve the underlying issues. They have been addressed and the university has moved on.
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Actually, there are many "facts" in the state report that have been proven false.
http://www.roanoke.com/news/roanoke/wb/306134
Furthermore, these unfacts have been repeated by the administration for years.
Most importantly, the university withheld information because the email was sent at 9:26 am, but they did not know the suspect was in custody because he was stopped at 9:24 am.
The purpose is accountability. Their daughters were murdered, and Steger never accepted responsibility. They still do not accept they were wrong.
If the email was sent at 8:30 or 8:45 am, the professors would have read it before heading to class. These Hokies did not need to die!
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You make assumptions regarding further deaths that cannot be proven, the state amended its report there was nothing new to see here....nothing...the families got zilch out of this no new evidence nothing...pointless lawsuit....
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Say a warning goes out at 8:30 am and there was a campus lockdown. Whew! Now, Cho has the guns, ammo in the backpack and the deadly intent ready to go in a locked dormitory. How do you stop him and how is the university absolved of those murders? I can hear it now "They locked a killer in with my son..."
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as someone who was there that year, earlier in september the university had a "lock-down" which entailed of suggesting people to go inside and lock their doors. what actually happened were students going outside, hanging out, walking around, and enjoying their day off.
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Those of us that were on campus that day stand by our school and the decisions they made. I was in Patton Hall during the shootings. I had an 8am class that morning in Norris Hall. Regardless of when they sent the warning I would have been on campus! Not to mention I didn't have a smart phone at the time and would not have received an email alert anyway. They have taken steps to protect the campus and improve the system so that something like this could never happen again. Time to move on.
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I guess you don't have to prove that a warning would have saved their daughters lives. Yeah, crying parents vs VT bureaucrats...and we're just the jury to make them pay! In hindsight the administration made the wrong decision, but $4 million award means the jury felt that no warning was directly responsible for their deaths. By extension ....$128 million for 32 lives. That's assuming a lot since Cho would have appeared to have been just another student (backpack) seeking safety and allowed access to every crowded nook and cranny on campus. Never mind he shot through two barricaded doors in Norris..or was on a suicide mission. Never mind his mother thought he was suicidal and refused a pastor's recommendation he go to a hospital. Never mind he was able to get a weapon with a history of mental illness...
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VT wants to take responsibility for our safety, therefore they should take responsibility for failing miserably. I lose my second amendment rights as soon as I step on campus, therefore VT should be liable to me for any crime I suffer while I cannot protect myself.
When seconds count the police are only minutes away. I respect law enforcement, but the supreme court has ruled that they have no duty to protect anyone, they simply clean up after its over and enforce the laws that were broken.
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