Discussion List for campus-based and allied personnel working to end gender-based violence on campus.

["Irene Weiser" <>]

Police say gunman had past stalking incidents


ADAM GELLER AP National Writer

http://public.findlaw.com/pnews/news/ap/o/51/04-18-2007/1f8300951be60985.htm
l 

(AP) - BLACKSBURG, Virginia-The gunman involved in the deadliest shooting in
modern U.S. history had previously been accused of stalking two female
students and had been taken to a mental health facility in 2005 after an
acquaintance worried he might be suicidal, police said Wednesday.

Cho Seung-hui worried one woman enough with his calls and e-mail in 2005
that police were called, said university Police Chief Wendell Flinchum.

He said the woman declined to press charges, and neither woman was among the
victims of Monday's massacre on the Virginia Tech campus. The gunman killed
32 people before fatally shooting himself.

During the stalking second incident, also in late 2005, the department
received a call from an acquaintance of Cho's who was concerned that he
might be suicidal, and Cho was taken to a mental health facility, Flinchum
said. About the same time, Cho's professor informally shared some concerns
about the young man's writing, but no official report was filed, he said.

Flinchum said he knew of no other police incidents involving the South
Korea-born Cho until the deadly shootings Monday at a girl's dormitory room
and a classroom building across campus.

State Police have said the same gun was used in both shootings, but they
said Wednesday they still were not confident it was the same gunman.

Police searched Cho's door room on Tuesday and recovered, among other items,
a chain and combination lock, according to documents filed Wednesday. The
front doors of the classroom building, Norris Hall, had been chained shut
from the inside during the shooting rampage.

Other items seized include a folding knife; two computers, a hard disk and
other computer disks; documents, books, notebooks and other writings; a
digital camera and CDs.

Cho's roommates and professors on Wednesday described him as a troubled,
very quiet young man who rarely spoke to his roommates or made eye contact.

His bizarre behavior became even less predictable in recent weeks, roommates
Joseph Aust and Karan Grewal said.

Grewal last saw Cho at around 5 a.m. Monday.

"He didn't look me in the eye. Same old thing. I left him alone," He told
CNN. He said when he saw Cho that morning and during the weekend, Cho did
not smile, did not frown and did not show any signs of anger. Grewal also
said he never saw any weapons.

Several students and professors described Cho as a sullen loner. Authorities
said he left a rambling note raging against women and rich kids. News
reports said Cho, a 23-year-old fourth-year student, may have been taking
medication for depression and that he was becoming increasingly erratic.

Professors and classmates were alarmed by his class writings - pages filled
with violence-drenched writing.

"It was not bad poetry. It was intimidating," poet Nikki Giovanni, one of
his professors, told CNN Wednesday.

"I know we're talking about a youngster, but troubled youngsters get drunk
and jump off buildings," she said. "There was something mean about this boy.
It was the meanness - I've taught troubled youngsters and crazy people - it
was the meanness that bothered me. It was a really mean streak."

Giovanni said her students were so unnerved by Cho's behavior, including
taking pictures of them with his cell phone, that some stopped coming to
class, and she had security check on her room. She eventually had him taken
out of her class, saying she would quit if he was not removed.

Lucinda Roy, a co-director of creative writing at Virginia Tech, said she
tutored Cho after that.

"He was so distant and so lonely," she told ABC's "Good Morning America"
Wednesday. "It was almost like talking to a hole, as though he wasn't there
most of the time. He wore sunglasses and his hat very low so it was hard to
see his face."

Roy also described using a code word with her assistant to call police if
she ever felt threatened by Cho, but she said she never used it.

Cho's writing was so disturbing, though, he was referred to the university's
counseling service, said Carolyn Rude, chairwoman of the university's
English department.

In screenplays Cho wrote for a class last fall, characters throw hammers and
attack with chainsaws, said a student who attended Virginia Tech last fall.
In another, Cho concocted a tale of students who fantasize about stalking
and killing a teacher who sexually molested them.

"When we read Cho's plays, it was like something out of a nightmare," former
classmate Ian MacFarlane, now an AOL employee, wrote in a blog posted on an
AOL Web site.

"The plays had really twisted, macabre violence that used weapons I wouldn't
have even thought of."

He said he and other students "were talking to each other with serious worry
about whether he could be a school shooter."

"We always joked we were just waiting for him to do something, waiting to
hear about something he did," said another classmate, Stephanie Derry. "But
when I got the call it was Cho who had done this, I started crying,
bawling."

Despite the many warning signs that came to light in the bloody aftermath,
police and university officials offered no clues as to exactly what caused
the shootings.

Cho - who arrived in the United States as boy from South Korea in 1992 and
was raised in suburban Washington, D.C., where his parents worked at a dry
cleaners - left a note that was found after the bloodbath.

A law enforcement official described it Tuesday as a typed, eight-page rant
against rich kids and religion. The official spoke on condition of anonymity
because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

"You caused me to do this," the official quoted the note as saying.

Cho indicated in his letter that the end was near and that there was a deed
to be done, the official said. He also expressed disappointment in his own
religion, and made several references to Christianity, the official said.

The official said the letter was either found in Cho's dorm room or in his
backpack. The backpack was found in the hallway of the classroom building
where the shootings happened, and contained several rounds of ammunition,
the official said.

Tuesday night, thousands of Virginia Tech students, faculty and area
residents poured into the center of campus to grieve together.

Monday's rampage consisted of two attacks, more than two hours apart - first
at a dormitory, where two people were killed, then inside a classroom
building, where 31 people, including Cho, died. Two handguns - a 9 mm and a
.22-caliber - were found in the classroom building.

According to court papers, police found a "bomb threat" note - directed at
engineering school buildings - near the victims in the classroom building.
In the past three weeks, Virginia Tech was hit with two other bomb threats.
Investigators have not connected those earlier threats to Cho.

Some classmates said that on the first day of a British literature class
last year, the 30 or so students went around and introduced themselves. When
it was Cho's turn, he didn't speak.

On the sign-in sheet where everyone else had written their names, Cho had
written a question mark. "Is your name, `Question mark?'" classmate Julie
Poole recalled the professor asking. The young man offered little response.

Cho spent much of that class sitting in the back of the room, wearing a hat
and seldom participating. In a small department, Cho distinguished himself
for being anonymous. "He didn't reach out to anyone. He never talked," Poole
said.

"We just really knew him as the question mark kid," Poole said.

One law enforcement official said Cho's backpack contained a receipt for a
March purchase of a Glock 9 mm pistol. Cho was a legal, permanent U.S.
resident. That meant he was eligible to buy a handgun unless he had been
convicted of a felony.

Roanoke Firearms owner John Markell said his shop sold the Glock and a box
of practice ammo to Cho 36 days ago for $571 (€420).

"He was a nice, clean-cut college kid. We won't sell a gun if we have any
idea at all that a purchase is suspicious," Markell said.

Two law enforcement officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because
the information had not been announced, said Cho's fingerprints were on both
guns. Their serial numbers had been filed off.

Governor Tim Kaine said he will appoint a panel at the university's request
to review authorities' handling of the disaster. Parents and students
bitterly complained that the university should have locked down the campus
immediately after the first burst of gunfire and did not do enough to warn
people.

Kaine warned against making snap judgments and said he had "nothing but
loathing" for those who take the tragedy and make it political.

"I'm satisfied that the university did everything they felt they needed to
do with the heat on the table," Kaine told CBS' "The Early Show" on
Wednesday. "Nobody has this in the playbook, there's no manual on this."

Virginia Tech students still on edge got another scare Wednesday morning as
police in SWAT gear with weapons drawn swarmed Burruss Hall, which houses
the president's office.

The threat targeted the university president but was unfounded, said Police
Chief Wendell Flinchum. The building quickly reopened, but students were
rattled.

"They were just screaming, 'Get off the sidewalks,'" said Terryn
Wingler-Petty, a junior from Wisconsin. "They seemed very confused about
what was going on. They were just trying to get people organized."

One officer was seen escorting a crying young woman out of Burruss Hall,
telling her, "It's OK. It's OK."

---

Associated Press writers Stephen Manning in Centreville, Virginia; Matt
Barakat in Richmond, Virginia; Lara Jakes Jordan and Beverley Lumpkin in
Washington; and Vicki Smith, Sue Lindsey, Matt Apuzzo and Justin Pope in
Blacksburg contributed to this report.

2007-04-18T09:12:43Z 

Irene Weiser
Stop Family Violence
331 W. 57th St #518
New York, NY 10019

607-539-6856
**************************************
www.StopFamilyViolence.org
the people's voice for family peace
**************************************