Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Virgina Tech University Death Toll is 32






BLACKSBURG, Virginia (Reuters) - The new details added to a chilling portrait of Cho Seung-Hui, a 23-year-old South Korean student who massacred 32 people and then took his own life at the university on Monday in the deadliest shooting spree in modern U.S. history.

32 students were shot dead at Virginia Tech University

in what has become the worse school shooting in history. In Columbine, 13 students died at the hands of 2 students. The Virginia Tech shooter acted alone.

There’s a certain degree of horror to a situation, but especially when a killer acts alone. Authorities have described Cho Seung-Hui as a “troubled Loner.” People are left asking why this all happened.

Why did this all happen? I would not have been surprised if something like this happened at a High School, but I’m appalled that it happened at a College. Isn’t college supposed to be the healing point from high school? The best years of your life?

What happened?

The shooter chained doors behind him to prevent escape, used two hand guns that he purchased legally, and fired into classrooms, shooting to kill. He then took his own life on a stairwell.

I grieve and morn for the students dead. Individually, they probably didn’t do anything at all to deserve what happened. But now I am going to say something that will anger and offend most of my readers, most of the people involved, and most people anywhere.

I don’t blame the Killer.

I don’t blame him at all. I don’t endorse what he did at all, I condemn it to the fullest extent humanly possible, but I don’t condemn him. I think if anyone deserves forgiveness, it’s him.

What happened to the souls of Barry Loukaitas, Klebold and Harris, and Cho Seung-Hui to make them so unbelievably enraged that they wish for death? Not just their own death, but the death of everyone?

Barry Loukaitas was the first school shooter who acted alone. His fall is described as slow, methodical abandonment and isolation by close friends, peers, and teachers. A well liked kid started all of the sudden being left behind. These things can destroy a mind and a heart. We’ve all felt bits of what a school setting can do to a young person, but because we’ve all felt it, does that make it justified?

Cho Seung-Hui was a loner, whom according to reports did not choose Lonerism. He apparently tried to fit in, tried to be accepted, but was ultimately rejected. A police report says that 2 female students complained of him annoying them. I know from experience that most socialization techniques of Loner’s tend to be annoying to everyone else, but the Loner doesn’t know that, and hence is shunned for reasons he is completely oblivious to.

Can you imagine having everyone hate you and you not having the slightest notion of why?

I can, and that is why I sympathize with the shooter. I would not have stood by him while he did what he did, I do condemn his action, I would have handed him over to the law, but I also would have hugged him, because apparently someone else forgot to.

I do believe that someone who knew him, a roommate or distant friend, saw what was happening to him and ignored it. I believe lots of teachers sat witnessing his fall, and watched and did nothing. I think in the back of their hearts everyone saw this coming when they looked at this young man, but no one cared. No one cared.

I believe that suicide is murder by a mass group of people, people who thought it not their duty to step in and do something, 2 kids died in my graduating class. This was indeed murder, but I want everyone to realize that this killer was not a murderer. Cho Seung-Hui was a young man who snapped. I am dearly sorry that the students at Virginia Tech had to pay the price for what may have been too many insults from jocks or too many put downs from a few dumb ass students and no shoulder to lean on.

We all need somebody to lean on.

The coming investigation will reveal what exactly pushed him over the edge and many more people will say what I just said and that will make it okay, but in the meantime, my heart goes out to the students at Virginia Tech University.

To ALL the students.

5 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Wow- You spilled your heart to write this. And yes eventually people will forgive, but what really hurts the most is not the snap of a loner who needed an overdue hug, but the death of students minding their own business, and dealing with problems of their own. My husband is always telling me I can't save the world but I still give it all I have to help one individual, when I see that there's a problem. I do agree with what you said about
Cho Seung-Hui being ignored, but everyone goes through this at one time or another, it's where you choose to direct this negativity that makes you or brakes you. He CHOSE his own actions and as a result took the lives of innocent sons, daughters, sisters and brothers of someone who loved them dearly. I wonder would you be so quick to forgive if it was your sister or brother? Would you grieve for this murderer if you watched him in action, spilling the blood of your best-friend? He took the lives of 32 people. That's 32 more hugs that are not going to be given. And I think we all know, now, how vitally important hugs are. I have to say, it took guts to write this piece, but right now it's just salt in the wound.

2:45 PM  
Blogger Infinitesimal said...

I understand what you are saying.

One of his teachers said:

"His writing was so violent, that I was afraid to leave him alone in the room with other students"

Well, she could have reached out to him, instead of recoiling.

He snapped, and he was ignored. those are the facts.

6:50 PM  
Blogger Raven Calister said...

"but everyone goes through this at one time or another"

That does not make it okay.

"He CHOSE his own actions"

he chose nothing, a life or misery was forced upon him and he snapped.

"Would you grieve for this murderer if you watched him in action, spilling the blood of your best-friend?"

Yes, and if I were strong, I would forgive, like Jesus said to.

"but right now it's just salt in the wound."

Watch the NBC report where quoted students said that "I kinda feel bad for the guy, I mean he must have had to have been really angry at the world to go through with something like this."

10:14 AM  
Blogger C-dell said...

The Virgina Tech incident is very troubling. He should not have made to the other side of campus without being noticed. It is a shame that today we we can't help these people before they lose control.

11:53 AM  
Blogger Raven Calister said...

Yeah that was kinda weird how the first two students were shot and there was merely an email sent out. I guessed they'd hoped they could keep it quiet until forensics showed up.

What happened is literally a nightmare scenario, and it wasn't fair to anyone, not even the shooter, that things turned out the way they did.

5:50 PM  

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