| This thread has been locked, it will not receive new replies. |
|
Locked on 04/18/2007 2:42:50 PM PDT by Admin Moderator, reason:
Duplicate: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1819553/posts |
Posted on 04/18/2007 2:01:00 PM PDT by foreshadowed at waco
A Virginia court found that Virginia Tech killer Seung-Hui Cho was "mentally ill" and dangerous. Then, the state let him go.
In 2005, after a district court in Montgomery County ruled that Cho was either a danger to himself or to others -- the legal criteria to obtain a detention order -- he was evaluated by a state doctor and ordered to undergo outpatient care.
The doctor found that Cho's "insight and judgment are normal" and that he was not taking any medications, according to documents obtained by ABC News.
The ruling came after Cho was taken by police 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's apparent mental state met the threshold for the temporary detention order.
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 university police to work with state-affiliated mental health facilities instead of on-campus counseling because it is easier to obtain a detention order.
"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," Flinchum said at a press conference Wednesday morning.
Cho was taken to Carilion St. Albans Behavioral Health Center in Radford, Va., a private facility that can take 162 inpatients, according to court documents.
It's unclear whether Cho went to the hospital with police on his own or was taken there under protective custody, a possibility under the temporary detention order obtained by police.
Authorities did not say how much time Cho had spent at the hospital.
One of the young women complained in November 2005 that Cho, then 21, was stalking her, but she declined to press legal charges against him. Police interviewed Cho for the first time and referred the case to the school's internal disciplinary board.
It's unclear whether any action was ever taken by the school, although Edward Spencer, a school vice president, said that it's not uncommon for a complaint to never reach a full hearing.
A second girl, less than two weeks later, told authorities she received disturbing instant messages from Cho, and asked police to make sure there was "no further contact" from him.
Police spoke to Cho the next day. They say that shortly after, they received a call from an acquaintance of his, expressing concerns that he might be suicidal.
For a third time, police met with him. "Out of concern for Cho, officers asked him to speak to a counselor," Flinchum said. "He went voluntarily to the police department."
Police say Cho talked with a therapist from a local mental health agency not affiliated with Virginia Tech. That agency had authority to seek the detention order from a local magistrate.
The student complaints that brought Cho to the attention of authorities came during the same time that creative writing professor Lucinda Roy went to administrators to voice her concern about violent themes in Cho's writing.
Roy told ABC News that Cho seemed "extraordinarily lonely -- the loneliest person I have ever met in my life."
But authorities said they had no contact with Cho between then and Monday's mass killings.
While the school, citing privacy laws, did not conclusively say that school counselors had ever worked with Cho, they did say that a system for working with outside mental health agencies and local authorities is in place.
"Clearly, mental health professionals have a legal and moral responsibility," when a student presents a possible risk, said Christopher Flynn, head of the university's counseling center. "We have a duty to warn."
But Flynn also said that signs of trouble in Cho's behavior were not a clear indicator that action would follow. "It is very difficult to predict when what someone perceives as stalking, is stalking."
A Loner, Mysterious Even to His Roommates
Seung Cho was quiet -- so quiet that some classmates of his say they never heard his voice in three years. His roommates reported he was distant and private, eating by himself night after night, and watching wrestling on TV.
Cho's roommates say he obsessively downloaded music from the Internet. One of his favorites was the song "Shine," by Collective Soul, which he played over and over
He even scribbled some of the lyrics on the wall, they said -- lyrics like, "Teach me how to speak; Teach me how to share; Teach me where to go."
He was early to bed and early to rise, normally in bed by 9 p.m., and sometimes up by 5:30 the next morning. His roommates tell ABC News they would see him in the morning putting in his contact lenses, taking prescription medication and applying acne medicine to his face.
"He pretty much never talked at all," said Joseph Aust, who shared a bedroom with him in a six-person dorm suite in Harper Hall. "I tried to make conversation with him earlier in the year. He gave one-word answers.
"He pretty much never looked me in the eye," Aust said.
In recent weeks his routine had changed. His roommates say he went to the campus gym at night, lifting weights to bulk up. He went for a haircut -- surprising them by coming back to the room with a military-style buzz cut.
Aust and another roommate, Karan Grewal, say they were aware that Cho had pursued women on campus. They said he also seemed to have an imaginary girlfriend, a supermodel named "Jelly."
Students say he seemed as quiet as ever in the days before Monday's rampage.
Trey Perkins, a student who saw Cho during the shooting spree, said it was unreal, "being that close to a monster."
Hear that, ATF?
That kind of puts the policy of no-gun campus in a strange light, doesn’t it? A guy with an illegally obtained gun was mowing down students whose RKBA was taken from them in the name of safety. Not a wise policy.
It's not the dealer's fault it's the Fed's fault.
It has been my experience that "mental health professionals" are not too much better off than those they pretend to "help". While being well intentioned, they too frequently are manipulated by those they treat, often for drugs and often to be released. They are taught to be "nonjudgmental" and we all know how much that attitude has helped society in general. Just my two-bits.
The same liberal pukes who want to take away our guns are the ones defending the rights of the criminally insane to not be profiled or have their information in any data base.
Rather than exercise gun control, I think we need to exercise some lunatic control.
The ACLU and Liberals feel sorry for these wackos. After all, they have rights just like Liberals think terrorists have rights.
If we tallied up all the people killed by nuts loosed on society since the end of involuntary committments in the 1970s (he’s just seeing a different reality, man, I mean, like, don’t you know???), we’d be shocked and horrified at what this policy has cost our country.
It wasn't the dealer's fault....it was the State of VA's fault. The dealer ran the required background check and got the okay to sell Cho the gun! The state of VA and the Feds (NICS) dropped the ball.
yeah, but whos’ job is it to ensure the court order shows up on the background check?
So he broke the law in getting a gun, he broke the law taking it on campus, he broke the law shooting people and he broke the law murdering people....we don’t need any laws, we might offend somebody, especially if they are from another country................but let’s make it the death penalty if you are a Christian with a gun in your closet!
Obviously someone dropped the ball and it wasn’t the arms dealer. Somebody is responsible for putting information in the data base, that obviously didn’t happen. How do you blame the gun dealer, he followed the rules, the info wasn’t there.
I imagine the court should report these orders to NCIC.
Why doesn’t the court post these adjudications on a public board so that gun sellers can determine if the nut they are selling a gun to is certifiable?
And you probably should have replied in the following thread instead of this one.
Student Arrested Over Va. Tech Remarks
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1819529/posts
1) The Orlando Sentinel reports that Cho set fire to a dorm room. It appears that VT officials did not expel Cho;
2) Neither did VT officials press charges. An felony conviction for arson would have, under federal law, prevented the background check from allowing the sale of the firearms to proceed;
3) Federal law now requires that anyone institutionalized for mental problems report that on his BATFE application form. It is a felony to not properly report this. Further, the federal government has been accessing records of such people to use in denying their ability to pass the background check.
And the libs say we need more laws to prevent some future mass murder. Sounds like snake oil. If the laws we have don’t stop mass murder, then obviously we don’t have enough law. Strangely (or predictably) most of the new laws always seek to restrict lawful ownership and use far more than they seek to address mass murderers.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.