PHI BETA from the Campus of VA Tech:
Some Thoughts on the Massacre at Virginia Tech [Carol Iannone]

I think first of all we need to pray. Then we need NOT to say that
there was nothing that anyone could have done to prevent this horror.
Without judging or condemning anyone, we need to learn from this for the
future.

I know we don't have all the information, or even much information at
this point, but there are aspects of what we have heard so far that gnaw
at me. I don't know why the campus wasn't on greater alert in general,
given the bomb threats of the previous weeks. I don't know why it was
so easy for the killer to enter the dormitory. Dormitories are virtual
homes for their students, a place where they are completely relaxed and
unguarded.

I don't know why there wasn't a more concerted effort to make sure after
the first shooting that the killer be apprehended. Authorities thought
the dorm incident was a murder/suicide. Wasn't it possible pretty early
to see that the young man who was dead in the dorm had not killed
himself? If so, that meant an armed killer was on the loose.
Therefore, wasn't there a way to issue a general warning so that
students could have been more on the alert after the first shooting?
Couldn't professors at least have been contacted so that unsuspecting
students were not in classrooms lined up like sitting ducks? Did no one
see the killer chaining the doors of one of the buildings?

I am sorry that no one had a gun to take the killer out before he could
destroy more lives. He was evidently able to reload. Was there a
moment when he could have been tackled? I don't say this to condemn or
judge anyone, believe me, but so that we think in terms of what can be
done in the future. Just as there is widespread CPR training and
instruction in the Heimlich maneuver, perhaps we should have classes and
training to prepare for such situations. Enough of them have happened
in recent years to warrant this.

Of course it's unimaginably terrifying to be confronted with an armed
lunatic but perhaps he could have been jumped and overcome while he was
reloading if some students had been able to recognize and shake off the
fear, panic, and paralysis that can take over at such times. We all
need to learn to act, and not necessarily to rely on security and
responders. We are supposed to be at war. This was not an act of
terrorism but it may as well have been, for the damage it caused. We
must be wartime ready.

There was some alert action. Some students realized in the first
classroom that the killer might come back and so barricaded the door to
prevent his re-entry. It worked. He did come back but they held the
door, which was evidently thick enough to stop the renewed burst of
bullets, and so some students from that classroom survived. And there
were moving instances of heroism. A Holocaust survivor whose life had
been spared decades before gave it for others yesterday. He barricaded
the door of his classroom against the killer, enabling the students to
escape through the windows.

And I'm sorry, some will really think me foolish, but I don't think
dorms should be co-ed, so that crazed, jealous boyfriends can enter
their girlfriends' dorms and kill them and the innocent young men who
come to their aid. If it had been a single-sex dorm, the killer might
not have been able to enter so readily. There aren't enough
difficulties getting young people through college these days so that we
have to deal with "domestic disputes" in their dormitories as well?

And, sorry again, but thoughts also arise on the killer's being an
English major and on the spiritual emptiness of much education nowadays.

Did the killer show any signs of snapping? If so, were these signs
properly acknowledged? Once a student erupted in rage at a colleague of
mine and the administration excused it as a sign of "stress."


04/17 12:43 PM

I was reading about this massacre earlier on yahoo news and it is just
devastating to think that our society has allowed such atrocities to
occur. Simply outrageous. One of the professors was saying that she had
sent this young man to counseling, but she says she didn't know if the
shooter had received any of it or not. I say its' just BS for the
simple reason, she had to have known if the young man was being attended
or not. Sounds like he was extremely a loner. Sometimes it makes you
wonder why people do what they do?
Of course who knows what kind of upbringing he had. The article also
mentioned how his writings in some class of his were excessively
disturbing. So HEELLLOOOO! Nobody saw the eventual killer potential in
this guy. PLEASE!!!!!

Off the cuff, I doubt anyone who is getting their information solely
from the media coverage thus far has enough information to make a solid,
educated criticism of the way the police or the university officials
handled themselves in this matter.

When something terrible like this happens, its natural to have hostility
towards those who are perceived as being 'responsible for protecting
us'.

But I do agree: As time goes on, and as we learn more, we should look
at what happened a learn from it with the intent of prevent future
occurrences.