Parents Demand Firing of Virginia Tech President, Police Chief Over Poor Handling of Mass Shooting

Fox News ^ | April 16, 2007

[Cecily]

John and Jennifer Shourds of Lovettsville, Va. demanded the immediate firings of University President Charles Steger and Virginia Tech Campus Police Chief W.R. Flinchum who he said "screwed up" the handling of separate shooting incidents that left 33 students dead, including the shooter.

“My God, if someone shoots somebody there should be an immediate lockdown of the campus,” said John Shourds. “They totally blew it. The president blew it, campus police blew it.”

The Shourds said they received a phone call from their daughter, Alexandra, a freshman at the college in Blacksburg, who was unsure of how to handle a vague university e-mail received around 9:20 a.m. regarding the first shooting incident that happened at the West Ambler Johnston Hall around 7:15 a.m. Later, it was learned that a lone gunman entered that hall, two buildings away from Alexandra’s dorm, and opened fire, killing two people.

[Steely Tom]

Let the healing begin.

[cripplecreek]

That didn’t take long.

[bannie]

Off with their heads!

(Seriously, this was not something that could be anticipated.)

[CBart95]

Fire someone. That’ll fix everything.

[dr_who_2]

Also from the Fox web site:

Eyewitness to Terror: Virginia Tech Students Speak About Campus Massacre

Monday, April 16, 2007

By Lynne Jordal Martin

April 16, 2007 began as an ordinary day for four Virginia Tech students who shared their experiences with FOXNews.com. Here are their first person accounts of the events surrounding the shooting and massacre of fellow students that took place on their campus:

Matt Meroney First semester senior Major: Civil Engineering Hometown: Leesburg, Virginia

Matt lives in an off-campus apartment about two blocks from campus. He was on his way to the gym before class. When he arrived at the really big parking lot he usually uses, people kept talking to him. Then “suddenly I get next to McBride -- which is right next to Norris -- [where shootings took place] and I see a police SUV, a police cruiser, and a guy is running from the north area. His shirt is blood soaked. The police cruiser screams to a halt. The officer runs to the guy, grabs him and screams off.”

Matt then made a call to the main switchboard at the school “because I have no idea what’s going on.” The operator tells him, “all we can say at this point is that you should proceed to your classes cautiously.” “So I’m like ‘f—- that.’ I texted my roommate. So many of our friends saw somebody that was shot. One of our friends was barricaded in a classroom. The gunman was shooting down the hall and they were barricaded in their rooms. He unloaded a whole clip into the door and was trying to demolish the door. Then he reloaded a whole clip and shot again and then he continued down the hall. – This was in Norris. One of my good girlfriends, her sorority “little sister” got shot in the back. A friend was in a room that the shooter made it into. He lined everybody up execution style. Our friend fell down and kind of played possum. He’s the only one that made it out. – That’s what he’s saying.

Tomorrow, one of my roommates, who was sleeping today, would have been in the room [where the shootings occurred]. A lot of things have happened to us. One of my friends got searched and thrown in a building. We’ve had two bomb threats in the past week and a half. You never really know what’s true. You hear, “Oh, school’s out. — And they NEVER cancel school here even with the snow. -- And then you hear someone got shot and then you actually see someone get shot…”

Matt’s parents were, understandably, very upset by news of the school shooting. “My mom and dad called me. She was just frantic. I couldn’t really have a conversation with her. She automatically thought I was shot.

One of Matt’s roommates is leaving the campus. He told us, “I don’t know if they’re going to leave the school for good or just for now.”

In the chilling aftermath of today’s events, what’s at the top of Matt’s mind? “The main thing I’ve been thinking about is would I have tried to do something to stop the guy? Would I have tried to tackle the guy when he wasn’t looking?”

[SmoothTalker]

A couple points.

1). There are thousands of shootings a year. None end like this. With hindsight things should have been done very differently but it would not be reasonable to have foreseen what happened. While colleges are different than normal places, you don’t lockdown every nearby building after a normal homicide.

2). Va Tech is a school where most students commute in. Hard to put a place on lockdown even if you wanted to with thousands of folks streaming in, many unaware anything is amiss. A lockdown would take a good bit of time. Perhaps a lockdown would have had the same result. I can’t imagine Va Tech has a enough police to blanket a 2600 acre campus. He could have just come into a classroom building or dorm with students huddled in a room and done the exact same thing.

The bottomline is that this could have and should have been handled better but situations like this are amazingly chaotic and complex. Things are much easier with the benefit of hindsight.

[Scarchin]

At this point, I agree with them. Here's what I posted on another thread:

Could someone help me out with this:

The college prez says that one reason they didn't lock down/close/cancel classes is that they thought that the gunman had left campus.

So --- they were sure he wouldn't return? Why not wait until he was arrested?

Does not compute...

[Paleo Conservative]

Fire? They should be sent to a firing squad.

[SE Mom]

Unbelievable.

There are still bodies in the classrooms, and not all the facts are KNOWN yet.

It may well be these parents are right, but it is incredibly disrespectful for them to come out this way. No shame. No class. Disgusting.

[The_Republican]

Yeah - the President of VT made some rather stupid comments, and started defending their failure right away, instead of saying we need to find all the answers.

One of his comments was that we simply didn’t suspect there would be another shooting.

Brilliant!

I have always been under the impression that once something like this occurs, the next steps taken by law-enforcement are always designed expecting the worse, and in most situations they seem to be overkill.

Here they have a shooting, and their immediate thought is that probability of another one hapenning is virtually none so no need to raise any alarms.

Sheer Genius!

I say he is too smart to just be the President of a University. He needs to find some other job more suited to his natural brilliance.

[Logophile]

At a press conference, Steger said authorities believed that the shooting at the dorm was a domestic dispute and mistakenly thought the gunman had fled the campus and defended the university’s handling of the tragedy. "We had no reason to suspect any other incident was going to occur," Steger said. "We can only make decisions based on the information you had on the time. You don't have hours to reflect on it."

Two people are found shot dead, and you assume that the gunman has left campus? Why?

Given the information they had, they should have assumed the worst. There was no reason not to suspect that another incident would occur. At the very least, the police would have to locate and arrest the suspect, which could be a very dangerous situation indeed.

[Ramius]

That’s some pretty nice 20/20 hindsight. Do the police in your town shut down the whole town when there’s a domestic incident, even with a shooting? They don’t where I come from.

Until the guy, hours later, started shooting again they had absolutely no reason to expect that.

...and so what if they had? Large numbers of students would congregate someplace, classes in session or not. So the shooting might have been at the student union building or a dorm lounge instead of a class building. Outcome is pretty much the same.

[stockpirate]

“demanded the immediate firings of University President Charles Steger and Virginia Tech Campus Police Chief W.R. Flinchum”

And well they should, to bad they can’t get any jail time.

[alarm rider]

Why can’t some common sense be used here?

If one person, near the incident has a CC permit, and was packing at the time, many lives could have been saved.

When, I ask you will common sense prevail? The unarmed are the unprotected. Like it or not, that is the world we live in. Free men own guns, slaves do not.

One person, with one weapon could have POSSIBLY stopped this. Yet, these people are looking for someone to blame. Blame yourselves then, blame all those that fear weapons in the hands of lawful citizens. Blame those that would disarm law abiding citizens. Will you never learn that criminals do not respect your touchy-feely gun banning laws?

[Cecily]

For all he knew, this could have been another D.C. sniper or Columbine situation, which it turned out to be (random killing of many).

[Ramius]

I think this “lockdown” bidness is way, way overrated and overused. Could be even this time, that the shooter exploited it to have nice tidy groups of students stuck in rooms to be shot at.

[rbmillerjr]

Holy Crap.

How about 1 day to let the bodies cool.
1 Day for for some grief...
followed by a week or so of investigation and funerals and a VT ceremony to honor the dead..

Then debate the actions that were taken and any action that is reasonable.

[Tarpon]

VT had the same emergency plan as did New Orleans.

[Right Wing Assault]

they thought that the gunman had left campus

Evidence or hopeful guessing? What makes it more likely that he fled the campus instead of going into one of many buildings to blend in? If a shooter was ever in the neighborhood, you assume he still is unless you are absolutely sure he is gone.