Posted on 04/17/2007 5:21:32 AM PDT by IrishMike
I don't believe double murders occur on campuses everyday.
In addition, it was only a 10 minute stroll to where the murderer was sitting in his room, arming up, writing, or what ever he was doing. They walked it off.
The point here is, you have a double murder scene, no gun, meaning no murder suicide. There was no proof the murderer had left the campus. No one should have just assumed the murderer just left town. There could very well have been other victims, others injured, or bodies located else where at the school.
This should have warranted an immediate, large scale law enforcement response, to search for witnesses, other victims suspects etc.
What if you had a daughter, laying on her bed, three buildings away from a double murder that just occurred at a school, and the suspect was still at large, armed. Would you expect law enforcement to respond with every possible resource available?
“What is the population of your home town?”
I’m not sure about his, but mine is about 25,000 - the same as VT. We had a murder last week and we’re STILL in lock down as they search cars, homes, garages and under porches. /s
> What if you had a daughter, laying on her bed, three
> buildings away from a double murder that just occurred at
> a school, and the suspect was still at large, armed.
> Would you expect law enforcement to respond with every
> possible resource available?
No, but I realize that a 12-30,000 student university is more like a large town than an elementary school.
I would and do expect that the authorities will take all necessary steps to notify everyone who might be affected of the possible danger, advise them of appropriate steps to ensure their safety, and take all reasonable steps to mitigate the danger.
I don’t think that happened in this case, and I hope and expect that the VT administration will revise their procedures accordingly, and that other universities will do likewise.
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OK.
So now let us get to the meat.
How would this have found a student with a student ID, who at that moment was in his own dorm getting ready for act two.
Even out of his dorm, he has an ID that says he belongs.
Would you strip search every single person on the street?
Do you realize how easy it is to hide a 9MM and a .22?
I have three 9mm’s. One will fit in the palm of your hand. It will still kill you.
I have also a Smith and although it does not fit in the palm, it is easy to hide in your belt, in the small of your back, under your arm, whatever.
Also remember that Monday was cold as hell and everyone was wearing arctic gear to stay warm. I have a sawed off .12 Ga that I could hide under those clothes.
So what are the cops going to do?
If you have 2,000 cops, putting some of them out on the street is PC. If you only have 70 something, it is dumb.
Especially when the cops see the guy walking by, pistols hidden under a big goose-down jacket, with his student ID pinned to the jacket front and do nothing because after all, he does have an ID He belongs..
26,000 thousand goosedown jackets. Which one do you look under?
Well, there is that gorgeous blond gal over there. I might check that out. What makes this discussion important, and I believe it is the only reason that we should not shrug it off as being wasted time, is that people are, on the TV and here as well, criticizing cops and administrators who are suffering real pain. The 20/20 armchair "they should haves" are having a theoretical game of what if and in the process making the pain worse, with the potential of destroying the lives of good people who are busting their butts to do a good job. Knock it off. It is very unattractive.
No
Really?
but I realize that a 12-30,000 student university is more like a large town than an elementary school.
No, the campus is not like a large town. It's like a college campus. They walked it off, a 10 minute stroll away, the killer was sitting in his room, cleaning his weapons or whatever he was doing for about 2 hours.
This facility should have been saturated with every available resources available searching for witnesses, other victims, other bodies, suspects, etc.
Whether the cops would have found something had they spent more effort looking is a question we will never properly know the answer to.
I agree with you that the likelihood is low, and that is not what I fault the authorities for.
What I fault them for is not notifying all of those whom they should reasonably have suspected might be in harm’s way that they might be in harm’s way.
THAT, at a bare minimum, is their responsibility. And they patently failed at it.
That it failed this one time is perhaps excuseable. Now that the failure is exposed, thought had best be put in by every administrator at every public facility about how NOT to screw up like that next time.
>> No
>
> Really?
Really. As another poster is pointing out, the likelihood of successfully finding the perpetrator by launching an immediate manhunt would be very, very low given any reasonable estimate of the manpower available.
I would expect, and I am disappointed that it didn’t happen in this case, that everyone who might reasonably be suspected to be in harm’s way is notified of the possible danger.
> No, the campus is not like a large town. It’s like a
> college campus.
What college campuses are you familiar with? I’m pretty familiar with UCSC, Cal Poly SLO and UC Berkeley. Murders are exceedingly rare at any of them, but none of them has a policy of locking down the campus should one occur, and I agree with them that it would be neither necessary nor wise to have such a policy.
There were no classes at 7 AM. Why were the students allowed to continue thier schedule unaware of the danger? Campus security should have been sent out to each dormitory informing all to remain in thier residence till further notice. I agree heads should roll, I believe they thought they could hush this up some what to avoid bad publicity for the college. The administration also knew this murderer had pych problems, he set fire to his room! Is that an indication? Why wasn’t he thrown out! The administration failed us all!
No
Interesting response.
As another poster is pointing out, the likelihood of successfully finding the perpetrator by launching an immediate manhunt would be very, very low given any reasonable estimate of the manpower available
How did they know there were no other shooting victims or bodies laying around elsewhere without searching for those possible additional victims, or others possibly being held by a gunman or gunmen?
Not to mention searching for any possible witnesses, or an armed double murderer that was wandering around, or sitting in his dorm room, a short 10 minute stroll away.
> How did they know there were no other shooting victims or
> bodies laying around elsewhere without searching for
> those possible additional victims, or others possibly
> being held by a gunman or gunmen?
How are you going to effectively search 2600 acres and several dozens of major buildings containing 16,000 students and another several thousand staff and faculty using 35 (guessing on the up side of available manpower) police in a timely manner?
Notify the campus community, effectively and in a timely manner, and you have a much better chance of finding out anything relevant.
How are you going to effectively search 2600 acres and several dozens of major buildings containing 16,000 students
How? I am just going to say it once more.
By a large, immediate response from all possible resources available. You go building to building, searching for other bodies, victims, witnesses etc. The murderer could have had others held at gun point. They did not know and they should have acted, in mass.
Remember, two hours had passed, while the murderer was a 10 minute stroll away, sitting there in his room, loading magazine clips.
It appears that we will just have to disagree here.
> It appears that we will just have to disagree here.
It does. I think our ideas of the relative size of available police forces vis a vis the size of the campus are drastically different.
Do check out post #238. I think it nicely summarizes the problem with the “lock ‘em down and search ‘em” idea.
I still think the administration royally screwed up by not being more prompt with the warning to the campus community, though, so I guess I find myself in the middle between your position and woodbutcher’s.
When guns are outlawed only outlaws will have guns.
I agrre with your take on this, The president and Chief of security should be looking for another job...
How? I am just going to say it once more.
By a large, immediate response from all possible resources available. You go building to building, searching for other bodies, victims, witnesses etc. The murderer could have had others held at gun point. They did not know and they should have acted, in mass.
Remember, two hours had passed, while the murderer was a 10 minute stroll away, sitting there in his room, loading magazine clips.
__________________________________________________________
Have you ever been to VT?
About 12 years ago, I had occasion to go many times. When classes are changing, it is one very busy place. It is not a little cow college.
You must not have read my post. 18 or 20 cops would have to check 2,500 persons each. Identify them, determine whether they belong where they are found, etc.
So they go to this guy’s room. They knock on the door. He lives alone and knows they will think he is not there if he is quiet. Do they break the door down? Not likely.
Or suppose he does open the door. They ask his name. He shows them his ID. Gun s and ammo are hidden under the mattress. Do they search? No warrant?
Oh, yeah. They get some judge to write out and sign 26,000 warrants.
Anyway, no warrant. Guy with his ID opens the door. Says he has seen nor heard nothing. Was just about to go out for breakfast.
Cops go on to the next room.
Coon hunters shoot the dog that barks up the wrong tree too many times in a row.
It is time for you to quit barking up the wrong tree.
It is time for you to quit barking up the wrong tree.
Excuse me?
Two small questions: How did they know the murderer, that just committed a double murder, who was on the loose and armed, was not just 4 buildings away, holding hostages at gun point?
How did they know, that there were not other victims, bodies, or others injured just 5 buildings away?
How did they know this?
Bodies piled up everywhere.
Everyone has a cell phone. VT is the most wired town in the US, based on percentile.
That is official, unless it has changed within the last couple of years.
Bodies piled up everywhere and no one is going to find out about it unless he goes door to door and looks behind every piece of furniture and under every bed?
Have you never had a murder in your town?
Did the cops come to your house to be sure you did not have bodies piled up in the basement?
Get real
How did they know the murderer, that just committed a double murder, who was on the loose and armed, was not just 4 buildings away, holding hostages at gun point?
How did they know, that there were not other victims, bodies, or others injured just 5 buildings away?
Bodies piled up everywhere. Everyone has a cell phone. VT is the most wired town in the US, based on percentile.
Anyone could walk in and hold an entire room full of people hostage. There could have been other unknown victims or bodies just 2 buildings away.
Get real indeed.
Yes, get real.
I asked you two questions.
Have you ever had a murder in your town?
Did the cops come to your house to see if you had bodies piled up or were being held hostage?
Cops just do not do that unless the person has been seen in the immediate area and they are pretty sure he is there.
The first requirement for that is to know who he is or at the very least, what he looks like.
Knowing he is white, black or Asian is not enough. They need a description and need to know that person is in your immediate neighborhood.
None of this was known until it was all over.
So I ask you again, when murders occur in your town do the cops come to your house to check to see that you do not have a murderer in your house?
I forgot one little detail.
You are right.
Cops should check every room.
So being (in your opinion, good smart cops) they go to the engineering building at 9:30 and check it out. Everything is fine. Students in class, prof on the job doing his thing.
Cops go to the next building.
30 minutes later, the murderer enters the building.
So what did the cops accomplish?
But they can’t go back to the building. They have to go through the other 99 buildings with however many rooms it takes to hold 26,000 people. Who knows, they might find something.
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