Posted on 04/18/2007 1:55:30 PM PDT by Ben Mugged
A Virginia court found that Virginia Tech killer Seung-Hui Cho was "mentally ill" and dangerous. Then it let him go.
Back in 2005, the District Court in Christiansburg said that Cho was a danger to himself but not others. He was ordered to undergo outpatient care.
The ruling came after Cho was taken to a nearby psychiatric hospital for evaluation in December 2005, after two female schoolmates said they received threatening messages from him and police and school officials became concerned that he might be suicidal.
That information came to light two days after Cho, a Virginia Tech senior, killed 32 people and then himself in a shooting rampage on the university's campus.
Police obtained the order from a local magistrate after it was determined by a state certified employee that Cho met legal criteria for temporary detention that includes being a threat to others and being unable to care for himself.
Under Virginia law, "A magistrate has the authority to issue a detention order upon a finding that a person is mentally ill and in need of hospitalization or treatment.
"The magistrate also must find that the person is an imminent danger to himself or others," says the guideline from Virginia's state court system.
Wendell Flinchum, the chief of the Virginia Tech police department, said that it's common for police to work with mental health facilities
"We normally go through access [appealing to the state's legal system for help] because they have the power to commit people if they need to be committed," said Wendell Flinchum, chief of the Virginia Tech police department.
(Excerpt) Read more at abcnews.go.com ...
Careful there.
This looks like was a failure of the Virginia databases, not the NICS system.
There are 4 state databases that are checked during instant background.
One relates to court ajudications of mental illness. See #19.
If he wasn;t in it, it wouldn;t flag him.
That’s what systems do. All the more reason for folks to be able to take care of themselves.
I think this needs to be bumped up to breaking, due to discussion here - Cho *illegally* purchased his guns at stores and *didn’t* get caught by NICS or VCIN!
The article says he was committed by a court of law. That is grounds to forbid one from owning a firearm. The arrest and adjudication should have shown up on the fed background check. What's the purpose if the records aren't complete and maintained by the State of VA?
VCIN and NICS are linked (last I heard) - and it shouldn’t have mattered anyway.
Want to bet that we’ll find out that he *is* in the database?
And, technically, both VCIN and NICS are instant check systems required in VA.
The bottom line is that NONE of the feel-good restrictions that liberals placed on gun ownership worked, as Cho bought his guns illegally and, surprise, the only people that got hurt were the law-abiding.
Yes, this is very worrisome.
Cho was the classic profile of someone who was adjudicated to be mentally ill by a state court, and who should have been in the state database of disqualified individuals.
Clearly someone dropped the ball by not properly entering his name into the database.
Already done. See 19, or 23. The VA records should have been on file and caused the background check to deny the transaction. The guy not only lied, VA, and/or the feds screwed up.
Right. And he was the textbook case for disqualification
This is very disturbing. Someone screwed up by not putting his name into the DB.
Actually they work pretty well if the data is complete.
I had a friend who worked on VA's NCIC, and through it is/was kind of "primitive", it gets the job done.
I’m almost willing to bet his name *is* in the database.
I was listening to his roommate talk about him. I can’t believe his roommate didn’t think it was off that Cho never talked to him ever! They slept in the same room together and Cho had a blank look on his face every day and never spoke to anyone.
I’m sorry, but if I had a weird roommate like that I’d report the oddness to the school asap.
Liberals don’t believe that “we” are all good. They consider conservatives and everyone else who disagrees with their kinky agenda to be demons from hell. Well demons from somewhere bad; most of them don’t believe in hell, do they?
What exactly was his previous trouble with the law?
This is very disturbing and, yes, also very important.
see #43
Sure, but perhaps rendered improperly by the court clerk during his competency hearing.
What I ment was that liberals think that if everyone had education than they wouldn’t murder or commit other crimes. And yes they think we are all good, that is why they don’t want us to go to wars, have severe crimes, etc... Heck, they think that pedophiles in prison need counseling and help than let back into society once they have been cured. See, education is the key with them. If we are educated than we won’t do such horrible things and be horrible people.
Honestly though, their theory on education never works and never will.
I moved it to Front Page.
(Answering from another thread that is now locked)
HIIPA allows patient record transfers with proper law enforcement requests.
However, HIIPA doesn’t apply here, since this is all court-level stuff. If a court orders you to a nut farm, or rules you to be mentally ill/deficient, that’s all that regulation applies to.
A voluntary self-admission to a hospital because you are depressed when your sister died (for example) wouldn’t be a 4473 disqualifier — nor should it be.
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