Shooting at Virginia Tech!

Bill Glasheen · Post by **Bill Glasheen** » Tue Apr 17, 2007 3:29 pm

From the CNN reference above:

Cho Seung-hui, who police say is responsible for most of Monday's shootings, was a loner, according to a university official

Wow! Now isn't that wonderful journalism? Some idiot went to college for 4 years to learn how to write this? He was a loner... We have him in a neat little box now. We can go on with our lives.

Mindboggling...

- Bill

Glenn · Post by **Glenn** » Tue Apr 17, 2007 4:09 pm

Victims include a holocaust survivor and "one of the top five biomechanics researchers in the country working on movement dynamics in cerebral palsy":
http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/04/17/vtech. ... index.html

Glenn · Post by **Glenn** » Tue Apr 17, 2007 4:16 pm

Since he was an English major I wonder why he targeted an engineering building. Targeting someone specific and then just started shooting everyone? Why shoot so few in the residence hall and then go on a rampage in a building which it does not seem on the surface that he would have been connected with? Definitely doesn't add up yet, and possibly it never will.

Bill Glasheen · Post by **Bill Glasheen** » Tue Apr 17, 2007 4:36 pm

It depends upon what you are trying to accomplish, Glenn.

As for why he picked the building... Consider that he chained the doors. Then look at the building. It's a bloody castle, for Christ's sake. The students and their teachers were in a mouse hotel. There was no exit, except by jumping out windows. Then he started on the ground floor, and started working his way up. He wanted to give little time for those with an exit out a lower window to make a fateful choice.

The goal? Maximum carnage before being stopped. That appears to be what he wanted to accomplish.

He killed himself quickly after the police broke through the front entrance and entered the building.

- Bill

Glenn · Post by **Glenn** » Tue Apr 17, 2007 9:32 pm

Some info on the shooter:
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article ... 69,00.html

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/04/17/vtech. ... index.html

Bill Glasheen · Post by **Bill Glasheen** » Tue Apr 17, 2007 9:43 pm

This tells us a little.

I'd love to get a hold of his creative writing and/or his psych file. From the standpoint of public health and in the interest of science, it really should be published. Unfortunately and/or fortunately those records probably will remain private.

We may however get glimpses of his thoughts from the dorm room computer they confiscated.

And on a more morbid note, our ability to probe that gray matter is gone.

- Bill

Valkenar · Post by **Valkenar** » Tue Apr 17, 2007 9:48 pm

Bill Glasheen wrote: I'd love to get a hold of his creative writing and/or his psych file.

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/ye ... tech1.html

Possibly fake, it is the internet after all. The link is safe to go to at work, but the text of the play is not work safe.

Bill Glasheen · Post by **Bill Glasheen** » Tue Apr 17, 2007 10:07 pm

I agree we should question the authenticity of this document. That being said... Forget about the sick nature of the plot. That's a perfectly terrible piece of work. Yikes!

A Quentin Tarantino wannabe?

<Sigh...>

What strikes me about the play isn't the violent nature per se. It's the juvenile nature of the dialogue. It's like an arrested state of social development. I might have written something like this in 4th grade.

If this is authentic and I was the teacher... I don't think I would have blown the kid off. His play mirrors senseless violence in the media and in film. What I might have done, however, is to work with him on it. I see major opportunities for teaching here.

And yes, I probably would have consulted a psychologist. But I don't think I would have made the kid go see a therapist over a crappy piece of violent art. For all we know, maybe he deeply resented it. Rather I think I might have tried to have him make deeper sense of it all.

Demand a re-write. Tell him what you want. Guide him.

FWIW... We teachers are hopeless optimists.

- Bill

MikeK · Post by **MikeK** » Tue Apr 17, 2007 10:46 pm

Damn, that is one angry bit of writing.

Bill Glasheen · Post by **Bill Glasheen** » Wed Apr 18, 2007 1:36 pm

That play as an isolated piece of work has enough issues. It has the social mentality of Gilligan's Isle with the violence of a Chuckie movie. Again... What comes to mind is a Quentin Tarantino wannabe.

Tarantino pulls it off because he understands social intricacies. We can be drawn into his violent plots because we see "normal" social interactions interwoven in the violence. It is the many, many layers of that combined with his countless allusions to past works of art and a tendency to laugh at himself which makes him good.

I would see a Tarantino movie with a mature someone who was emotionally together. Some people (including yours truly) like to look over the cliff (so to speak) and see what that feels like. We have no interest in jumping off the cliff, or pushing someone else off. We just want to understand. It's the way we generate understanding of unspeakable things in life. It helps us put that in a healthy place. And yes, it can be an adrenaline rush. Some of us like adrenaline - particularly when it is induced by life.

I bring my boys to see violent movies from time to time. But generally I do so only when the movie is about an event in history where violence was part of the event. Gratuitous violence? I don't think so... Not for their young minds. It's difficult to put it in context when your social skills aren't yet developed.

I did one time watch Kill Bill because a karate student gave it to me. It was interesting... It certainly was a rich piece of art with lots of martial eye candy. My younger son walked in. I almost made him leave... But then I noted he was spending more time doing Gameboy than he was watching the movie. He just wanted to be with me. Fine...

I wouldn't bring a young child to see such a film.

I can remember one time after a significant layoff where I was having a tough time. Everything was going perfect for me. A new company wanted me. But it would take time. And there was the unknown. During that time, I did not want to go see violent films. It wasn't what my brain needed, and I knew it. I wanted my head in a different place. I needed to strongarm my emotional self.

What I hear now about this young man is that a creative writing instructor was very, very worried about him based upon his writing. And she hadn't even seen this McBeef play! Not only that, but he made other people in the creative writing class uncomfortable. He would come to classes with sunglasses on. The teacher pulled him out of the class and took him on as a one-on-one project. When she would ask him a question, it would take him fully 20 seconds to respond. She kept trying to get him to go to counseling. He wouldn't.

Oye!

Let's see now... Classic signs of depression. A social juvenile in a young man's body. Preoccupation with violence. Not just one play... It was in most (maybe all) of his creative writing.

Can you say unhealthy?

Bless this professor's heart, but... I was in a similar situation once. I worked with a student health psychiatrist, and we literally had folks with the white coats come to this woman's dorm room. She was forced into therapy.

There are certain key things you look for. Is the person a danger to him or herself? Are they a danger to others? If you know in your heart that a person is deeply troubled, there are ways to make them get help. There's no law against being "strange" and we need to let unusual people alone. But a "harm alarm" is a call for action.

Am I Monday morning quarterbacking? Yes... Have I intervened in a similar situation? Yes... So I guess I have some room to speak on this.

This is still a learning opportunity.

- Bill

Bill Glasheen · Post by **Bill Glasheen** » Wed Apr 18, 2007 1:43 pm

If you want to see a great, uplifting piece of work which looks to the positive in such a matter, see the move Good Will Hunting. For many reasons, that movie is on my "top ten" list.

- Bill

Gene DeMambro · Post by **Gene DeMambro** » Wed Apr 18, 2007 5:15 pm

News reports indicate he was refered to cousneling several times by his professors, but he refused. His parents brought him to a mental health facility in 2005, who worried he was suicidal. He was also accused of stalking women, who called police.

Gene

Bill Glasheen · Post by **Bill Glasheen** » Wed Apr 18, 2007 5:53 pm

Yes.

If you are a danger to yourself or to others, the medical community has special dispensation to act on behalf of you. I have pulled that chord twice in my life for someone in a university community, probably saving a life in both cases.

We are Monday Morning Quarterbacking when it comes to Cho. I don't blame anyone in Blacksburg. And it would have been tough to predict the event Cho presided over. But we can learn. Listen, understand, comfort, share in the grieving, and move on.

FWIW, an AOL employee and one of Cho's classmates in his creative writing class has released 2 of Cho's plays. One is the Richard McBeef play. The other is Mr. Brownstone. These plays were shared for peer review in their creative writing class. And it was difficult for the students to comment.

Folks in his class joked about Cho one day being a "school shooter."

The patterns of behavior with his many friends and his many classes are coming out now. We will diagnose with 20/20 hindsight, and declare ourselves brilliant. What is more important though is understanding such a troubled mind. What organic and inorganic events led to this behavior? When should we act? How can we cure?

Take the lemons, and make lemonade.

- Bill

MikeK · Post by **MikeK** » Wed Apr 18, 2007 6:48 pm

Folks in his class joked about Cho one day being a "school shooter."

Wasn't something like that mentioned in The Gift of Fear? You see the signs, you know what can happen, but you push it off with a joke.

Bill Glasheen · Post by **Bill Glasheen** » Wed Apr 18, 2007 6:59 pm

Bingo!

The person who said it stated he bawled when he heard what had happened.

- Bill