We now know a bit more about Seung-Hui Cho. We know that he was a troubled, mentally ill loner. We know that 2 years ago, VT University Health officials attempted to help him, and he was deemed "mentally unstable, a danger to himself and others." Then he was released. We know that despite this he was allowed to legally purchase firearms. So much for the gun control lobby!
Why was this sick young man not given the help he so desperately needed? How did he slip through the cracks? Obviously, we need to drastically fix the mental health system in this country. I do not have the answers, only more questions.
Even Cho's family says he had problems as a child. His parents were concerned that he might be autistic. Yet he passed through the public school system. Professors at VT all say that much of his work was substandard and frightening. Yet he was about to graduate in less than two months. Why? So he would no longer be the problem of this prestigious University?
Then there is the manifesto that he sent to NBC, during the two hours hiatus between the first shootings, and the final. NBC aired some of the video that he sent, showing the world a twisted, rambling diatribe against his imagined demons. He claimed that:
" I didn't have to do this. I could have left, I could have fled. But no, I will no longer run. If not for me, for my children, for my brothers and sisters, the that you (EXPLETIVE DELETED), I did it for them.You had 100 billion chances and ways to have avoided today but you decided to spill my blood. You forced me into a corner and gave me only one option. The decision was yours. Now you have blood on your hands that will never wash off. You just loved crucifying me. You loved inducing cancer in my head, terrorizing my heart and ripping my soul all this time. "
NBC has been castigated for airing any of the so-called manifesto. Some of the families of the victims were appalled that the decision to air the clips was made. In hindsight, perhaps they should have run a text crawl with the words and not shown the pictures of the angry Cho brandishing guns. Perhaps they would have been better off posting the pictures and video links up on the network website.
Additionally I have seen family members being accosted by the media, and tearfully saying how much their loved ones meant to them. I hope I am never in the position that these people are in, but if I ever was, and someone came up to me with a camera and microphone,. and started asking me stupid questions at the worst moment of my life, the reporter would walk away very awkwardly and painfully with a camera of microphone ( or both) up their asses!
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