Posted on 04/20/2007 11:58:21 PM PDT by the scotsman
A survivor of the Virginia Tech massacre has been describing how a colleague died to protect others. Although badly injured, graduate student Waleed Shalaan distracted gunman Cho Seung-Hui to save another person from his bullets.
Waleed saved another student's life.The surviving student, who wishes to remain anonymous, told of Waleed's heroics through an email to his supervisor.
He describes how he was left uninjured after Cho's initial round of shots.
Meanwhile, Waleed had been wounded but was still alive.
However, when Cho later returned to the classroom to inspect for signs of life among his victims, the surviving student struggled to remain calm.
He believes he would have been shot dead were it not for Waleed's "protective movement" that distracted the gunman.
Cho turned and shot Waleed for a second time, killing him, before leaving the classroom.
Randy Dymond, a civil engineering professor, has said the student asked to him to tell the tale "so that the family of Waleed understands the sacrifice."
Shaalan's mother broke down when she heard Mr Dymond's account.
"He was trying to save someone else," she said repeatedly.
Dymond said Shaalan's body was taken to a Blacksburg mosque so classmates, teachers and friends could say goodbye before he was sent to Egypt for burial.'
Hi Jo and ST
“The surviving student, who wishes to remain anonymous, told of Waleed’s heroics through an email to his SUPERVISOR.”
You didnt miss this little titbit did you?
“A” is doing his graduate work under Dymond? There’s some type of connection anyway.
BTW Dymond teaching Civil Engineering If only one of those surviving students is a Civil Engineering student...
So we need to find out if Krause or Hixon is in Dymond’s
Civil Engineering class. That sounds more like Hixon.
Did you read Post #577?
Very sad.
Randel L. Dymond
Associate Professor dymond(at)vt.edu
(540) 231-9023/231-8935
I had a doctor who was Muslim and he was one of the most caring people I know. When I went the first time to his office, he was worried about my condition; he called me the next day to see if I was doing alright. He called about three times during the times I went to him. When I had my first heart problem, he came to my room in ICU to see me. I was out of it but my husband talked to him. We really can’t just generalize about people.
“And it appears that it does not hold together for the main premise of the news article.”
Sorry, just what did you consider the “main premise” and when was it you demomstrated that it didn’t hold together ?
Perhaps you could provide a short synposis, and if you would leave out all the unsupported speculations you mixed in ( and I shot down ), I’d appreciate it.
Or none at all.
Thanks for all the “leg” work! Great job!
Do we know any of the timestamps (or other times) of the email? And how do they compare with published accounts?
You asked — “Sorry, just what did you consider the “main premise” and when was it you demomstrated that it didn’t hold together ?”
The main premise of the article is that an “anonymous student” — believes — that Waleed distracted the shooter and saved his life.
The main premise of the article is not based on fact, but just a supposition of belief from a student we have no idea even exists. Since it’s a “belief” and since we can’t even find the student — it’s not been proven to be anything else other than one of those Dan Rather — “the document may be fake, but the story is true”. So, likewise, the student may be fictitious, but the story is true.
Regards,
Star Travelr
Thanks bvw.
I’m pretty certain if anyone, it’s Krause.
In post #577 you will notice that Hixon thanks
the Lord Jesus Christ for sparing him and
acknowledges the prayers of his wife.
I can’t find a public statement made by Krause.
So he fits the anonymous profile... so far.
Slate has text messages between.
This whole article is FASCINATING.
http://www.slate.com/id/2164428/
The Farkers find a site where they can listen to the police scanner, and they post e-mails and news stories when they hear or read them. They worry about the message board’s inevitable descent into a gun-control flame war and warn about not overwhelming the Virginia Tech Web servers. Then, at 4:03 p.m., this IM session appears in a post:
[15:38] a: i know 3 of the people that were killed so far....everything is just to unreal
15:38] b: wow man, i am sorry
[15:38] b: were they seniors
[15:38] b: what have u heard has happened
[15:38] a: They were grad students
[15:38] b: damn man, again i am sorry, my thoughts and prayers are for them and their families and friends
[15:38] a: yea me to
[15:38] a: well a guy in my design group for land development. ( lee hixon is a grad student..) he lived
[15:38] a: he was in the room where the guy killed everyone
[15:38] a: the guy shot at him 4 times and missed
[15:39] a: he fell to the ground and played dead
[15:39] a: but he lived..
[15:39] a: he said some of the names to me who died...he said the whole class was killed except him and one other guy
[15:39] b: wow, what class was it?
[15:39] a: Graduate Class for Advanced Hydrology
[15:39] b: thats nuts man, i cant fathum what he was going through
[15:39] a: he is so shooken up
[15:39] a: when he called me, i thought he was joking
[15:39] a: he was so hysterical
[15:39] a: he said blood was everywhere and all over him
[15:39] a: he said bullet holes were all in the walls and desks...
[15:39] a: he said he thought he was dreaming
[15:39] a: he had bullets fly and miss him
[15:39] b: damn man, i dont know what to say, i just feel for everyone involed
[15:39] a: yea same here
[15:39] a: im glad you are ok though
[15:39] a: i just talked to eddie
[15:39] a: and he said him and walter are ok
[15:39] b: cool
[15:39] a: ok well im going to go for now...but i will talk to you later man...ill talk to you
later if i hear anything else
[15:39] b: cool, later man
In this article Dymond doesn’t mention anything about an email.
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/04/20/africa/ME-GEN-Egypt-Virginia-Tech-Shooting.php
Randy Dymond, a civil engineering professor, said Shaalan was credited with distracting gunman Cho Seung-Hui to save the life of a fellow student.
Dymond, who attended a service for Shaalan Thursday, said the Egyptian was in the first classroom Cho attacked and was badly wounded. Cho returned to the room twice to search for signs of life.
During one of those incidents, a second student who was uninjured, was playing dead. When Shaalan noticed Cho making a move to shoot the student, the Egyptian made a “protective movement to basically decoy the killer into thinking it was him making any kind of sound instead of the survivor,” Dymond said.
Dymond declined to give the name of the student who survived, but said the student wanted him to tell the story “so that the family of Waleed understands the sacrifice.”
A few Arabs did try to help the Jews. Nineteen Arab families saved dozens, maybe even hundreds of Jews. Zmira Mani wrote about an Arab named Abu Id Zaitoun who brought his brother and son to rescue her and her family. The Arab family protected the Manis with their swords, hid them in a cellar along with other Jews who they had saved, and found a policeman to escort them safely to the police station at Beit Romano.Just an aside, "Beit Romano" -- a bit of the old cosmic sense of humor.source: http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/hebron29.html
You asked — “Do we know any of the timestamps (or other times) of the email? And how do they compare with published accounts?”
We don’t know the time stamp. We don’t know if the e-mail exists. We don’t know if the professor was hoaxed. We don’t know if the professor is perpetrating a hoax. We don’t know if the student exists. We don’t know (in the event a student like that exists) if the student said such a thing. We don’t know if the student’s comment is being portrayed and conveyed correctly.
We don’t know if the “belief” that is stated from that “anonymous student” will be backed up today, if he were to speak.
In fact, if we were to take just the story (and for discussion pretend that it’s true) we can dismiss the student’s “belief” just from that story — itself.
Here’s a quote from an article here —
“On the morning of the attack, the gunman came back to Mr. Shaalan’s classroom twice. On one return, he noticed an unharmed student lying next to Mr. Shaalan, who had been hit and was badly injured. As the gunman approached that student, Mr. Shaalan moved to distract him and was shot again.”
http://chronicle.com/news/profiles
It’s the same problem I saw *immediately* from the start, with this story.
Basically, supposing if the shooter goes for the anonymous student (as the article says) and then Waleed moves or distracts him or whatever — then Waleed gets shot.
This is the “supposed story” being that it’s a “belief” of the student. But in analysis this particular event, we see it *cannot* have happened this way.
Note the article above. It says the shooter notices the unharmed student (the anonymous student). This is the part which is the speculation in the article, you’ll see why.
Supposing the shooter notices the anonymous student and Waleed *distracts* shooter — and Waleed gets shot. Since the shooter was originally noticing the anonymous student, after he shoots Waleed, he’s going to shoot the anonymous student. BUT — the shooter didn’t. This puts the “lie” to the “supposition” that the shooter was going for, or noticed the anonymous student. He never did. He thought the anonymous student was dead.
The shooter only saw Waleed move.
So, this is the scenario that fits the facts of the circumstances. The anonymous student is playing dead (and the shooter thinks so) and then Waleed moves, the shooter is going to kill Waleed, but he’s not going to go for the anonymous student because the killer always thought he was dead. Waleed then gets shot and killed; the anonymous student is still playing dead; the killer still thinks the anonymous student is dead. The killer moves on.
That’s the basic problem with this whole story — right there. That *proves* beyond all doubt that Waleed could have *never* distracted the shooter, because the shooter would simply go right back to the anonymous student and kill him, too.
Thus, the shooter was never going after the anonymous student. There was no one to save. Waleed simply killed himself by moving.
Regards,
Star Traveler
... and anonymous is not anonymous to Dymond.
But it appears that the family of Waleed were not as concerned with the anonymity as you seem to be - since the anonymous writer was not out to impress you or anyone else, it’s his call.
“Arabs”
They may have been Christian Arabs.
See what you started?
You quoted — “During one of those incidents, a second student who was uninjured, was playing dead. When Shaalan noticed Cho making a move to shoot the student, the Egyptian made a “protective movement to basically decoy the killer into thinking it was him making any kind of sound instead of the survivor,” Dymond said.”
And then there was this one, quoted earlier —
“On the morning of the attack, the gunman came back to Mr. Shaalan’s classroom twice. On one return, he noticed an unharmed student lying next to Mr. Shaalan, who had been hit and was badly injured. As the gunman approached that student, Mr. Shaalan moved to distract him and was shot again.”
.
It’s, again and still — the same problem I saw *immediately* from the start, with this story.
Basically, supposing if the shooter goes for the anonymous student (as the article says) and then Waleed moves or distracts him or whatever — then Waleed gets shot.
Note that in the first quote up above, it says that Waleed noticed that Cho was going for the anonymous student. It’s the same as always. The anonymous student is the target (in the “supposed story”)
In addition the “supposed story” is a “belief” of the student. But in analysis this particular event, we see it *cannot* have happened this way.
Note the article above. It says the shooter notices the unharmed student (the anonymous student). This is the part which is the speculation in the article, you’ll see why. The speculation and “premise” of the whole thing is that the anonymous student was the original target from which Waleed distracted him.
SO..., supposing the shooter notices the anonymous student and Waleed *distracts* shooter — and Waleed gets shot. Since the shooter was originally noticing the anonymous student, after he shoots Waleed, he’s going to shoot the anonymous student.
BUT — the shooter didn’t. This puts the “lie” to the “supposition” that the shooter was going for, or noticed the anonymous student. He never did. He thought the anonymous student was dead.
The shooter only saw Waleed move. It was apparent to the killer that Waleed was the one to be killed.
So, this is the scenario that fits the facts of the circumstances. The anonymous student is playing dead (and the shooter thinks so) and then Waleed moves, the shooter is going to kill Waleed, but he’s not going to go for the anonymous student because the killer always thought he was dead. Waleed then gets shot and killed; the anonymous student is still playing dead; the killer still thinks the anonymous student is dead. The killer moves on.
That’s the basic problem with this whole story — right there. That *proves* beyond all doubt that Waleed could have *never* distracted the shooter, because the shooter would simply go right back to the anonymous student and kill him, too.
Thus, the shooter was never going after the anonymous student — that’s the “false premise” of the entire article, put in there just for making a “hero” out of nothing.
There was no one to save. Waleed simply killed himself by moving.
Regards,
Star Traveler
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