Posted on 04/19/2007 3:30:12 PM PDT by ventanax5
— The videos of Seung-hui Cho, the man who fatally shot 32 people at Virginia Tech on Monday and then killed himself, shouldn't have been released because they don't offer the public any greater understanding of the gruesome crime, said Michael Welner, a forensic psychiatrist and ABC News consultant, on "Good Morning America" today.
"If anybody cares about the victims in Blacksburg and if anybody cares about their children, stop showing this video now. Take it off the Internet. Let it be relegated to YouTube," Welner said. "This is a social catastrophe. Showing the video is a social catastrophe."
(Excerpt) Read more at abcnews.go.com ...
They agreed on FoxNews that they would have done the same thing if the package would have been sent to them.
Ya think. We the people should insist our congresscritters enact legislation that buries the accomplishments, makes artistic opportunity illegal(as in a movie about this shit) and expunges the records of the person who commits a crime resulting in the death of X number of people. Basically make it so the glory seeker is rendered as never having existed. The fact NBC ran with the video shows they don’t give a crap about the world we live in.
Also this idiot got his “inspiration” from an utterly pornographic piece of film known as Old Boy. I rented this crap. Cannes fawned over it. It’s hopelessly stupid and violent and centers around a father’s fight to rejoin his daughter who he enjoys sex with.
Liberalism in it’s current debauched state is to blame for this stuff happening.
I agree, I think that maybe they should have limited all of this to just pictures, but they didn’t and maybe they will get sued but they will win because the package was their property and they had the right to do whatever they please with it.
NBC did an absolutely backward approach, ending up with the worst of all worlds.
They sensationalized this guy by the way they played his videos and read excerpts from his statement on the evening news, in front of their audience of millions of families.
And then, on their website, they only posted NBC-selected individual pages and video clips for people interested in analyzing this guy.
They should have NOT shown video clips or read lengthy excerpts on the evening news broadcast - but rather had a background still of an unflattering photo (we know they can do that, they do that with conservatives all the time) of the guy, and referred generally to the themes in his message. And then moved on to a more lengthy piece on the people whose promising lives he cut short by killing them.
And on the website, they should have posted all the materials, including at least a full transcript of the videos if not the videos themselves, at this time.
I read a quote by a police spokesman that they materials in the NBC package added little or nothing to the investigation, so I doubt very much that the portions that were posted or not posted on the website were decided by law enforcement.
I think the whole thing should be made available—every single byte that Cho put on disk or paper and sent to NBC. All of it. Uncensored, unaltered, unbleeped, unedited. Put it all out on the Internet and let’s see this bastard without the drive-by media filtering it for us.
That having been said, there is NO need to put this guy’s screeds in “heavy rotation.” I think all the information should be released, but there’s no need to turn MSNBC into the Cho Channel.
}:-)4
He was also picked on and pushed to the ground in HS. He spoke up once in a poor english voice and got the ronery treatment. The cool kids do this at their own risk. I had a nice talk with my cool kid about this. This nerd was driven crazy by his environment. The anti-depressants didn’t allow him to mature out of the anger.
My stayed at holiday last night 2 centavos.
Anybody old enough to remember when everything wasn’t censored and banned for our emotional health?
I understand your logic of why they should have shown this video, but the timing was all wrong. The victim’s families are still in mourning. Sure it would have eventually seeped onto the internet but at least there people would see it if they wanted to. This was broadcast on every major news network non stop for 18 hours or something. Fox finally pulled it but I don’t know if it’s still on the other channels.
Good post and an excellent question!
I suppose they were waiting around for the Government to come in and talk Cho down to where he could see the error of his ways.
It’s kind of hard to enforce black and white choices about right and wrong with mental illness when there exists lawyerly equivocation at every turn with other issues.
Nothing changes unless we are willing to trust and deputize those among us who have demonstrated good citizenship and several references willing to vouch for their behavior. Along with a job and good credit. And no history of mental illness. These people should be given the choice of being able to pack heat. The idea of a gun free zones needs to be squashed in places of large gatherings without security - theaters, sporting events without security, college campus, basically any unsecured environment.
The criminally insane will not hesitate to load up, legally or otherwise.
You said — “That having been said, there is NO need to put this guy’s screeds in “heavy rotation.” I think all the information should be released, but there’s no need to turn MSNBC into the Cho Channel.”
Yes, a full release of all of it, uncensored. And then, yes, no need to do it over and over again. I think it needs to be aired at certain times, because not everyone will see it at one particular time of the day, but not every 5 to 10 minutes.
Regards,
Star Traveler
I think the greatest danger to airing this murderer’s videos is the possibility that another wacko will find them inspiring and encourage them to act out their sick fantasies knowing that they too can become famous on live t.v.
You’re damned right they will. These people were steeped in passivity and it slowed them to their detriment. People the world over now have this shooting to instruct them and believe me the next shooter gets run from, interfered with and/or out right jumped. There ain’t gonna be no more 32 dead with three bullet wounds apiece shootings after this. I’m also willing to bet that there will be a loosening of the gun restrictions to boot.
“first, no one knows what happened in those classrooms and no one knows how many died as a result of trying to get to the gunman.”
Worng! We have survivor accounts that indicate no one attempted to stop the shooter other than those two individual mentioned.
Three survivors in one classroom who had not fought back, braced their feet against the door to keep Cho from reentering the classroom to finish them off.
You need to read the reports of the survivors who when face with a (I hope you will forgive the psychological reference) the choice to fight or flee, chose to hide in closets (which apparently did not work very well) and jump out second story windows while the 75 year old professor tried to bar the door.
“He “muted” his true character, out of the realization that if he showed it *fully* he would be locked up.”
You’ve made my point. The video is useless from a public awareness perspective.
And I apologize for not proof-reading that disaster I posted before.
Bingo. They show this video, which should never be shown to anyone, but they refuse to show the 9/11 videos because “it’s too soon” and “the emotions are too raw.” (IOW, it might remind us why we’re fighting.)
Sure, exploit these families for your own pruient purposes, but don’t allow 9/11 to interere with your ideology.
But that is EXACTLY the point the psychiatrist is making...it is NOT REALLY how he talked or walked or acted before he did this. It is how he wanted people to remember him. It teaches us nothing because it is a manipulation, not the truth. By lending it credence, we are doing society additional damage via his manipulation.
All I can say is watch the clip. He makes a LOT of sense.
PING! It was inhumane in my opinion. The entire media are all guilty of allowing this evil maggot to invade our homes and terrorizing the families of those lost. It is dispicable and continues tonight on some.
It would have leaked out anyway and there is so much interest in the case that I have no problem with them showing it. Everyother major network would have done it too. Honestly I think CNN had the worst video with the one where you could hear those folks being murdered one by one.
” why were all the male students in those classes so sheepishly waiting to be shot dead rather then taking action to save some lives if not their own”
Didn’t some save lives by barricading a door in two instances? Once after he fired rounds inside a class and tried to come back, once when alert male students saw him coming down the hall.
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