Posted on 04/17/2007 10:03:44 PM PDT by TBP
BLACKSBURG, Va. -- On a university campus of 2,600 acres, with more than 26,000 students, ironclad security is not a practical goal. Even so, tough questions swiftly surfaced as to how effectively Virginia Tech authorities responded to Monday's horrific massacre.
Why were campus police so sure the threat was contained in one dormitory, when most of the killings occurred two hours later in a classroom building?
Why did they think the assailant might have left the campus after those initial shootings?
Why was there a lag of more than two hours after the first shootings before an alarm was e-mailed campuswide - around the time another, more deadly burst of carnage occurred? And more generally, some security experts wondered, was the school's crisis planning and emergency communications system up to the task?
Clearly, something went terribly wrong.
Bombarded with security questions at a news conference, Virginia Tech President Charles Steger said authorities believed the shooting at the West Ambler Johnston dorm, first reported about 7:15 a.m., was a domestic dispute and mistakenly thought the gunman had fled the campus.
"We had no reason to suspect any other incident was going to occur," he said.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsmax.com ...
“Why did they think the assailant might have left the campus after those initial shootings?”
Because he actually had left the campus?
Remember - he went off to mail his videos to NBC.
The Blacksburg police didn't think it was a murder/suicide. They believed that the new boyfriend had killed the girl and RA at first (this was why they had the confusion of two separate descriptions of the perp; because the West AJ folks remembered the new boyfriend leaving after he dropped her off and thought he did it), and they chased down his car and detained him on his way out of town (he's a Radford student). They thought they were chasing the perp, and that he was in custody shortly. By the time they established he wasn't involved, the other shooting had already occurred...
Fireman don’t have to confront gunman. Besides. the killing was over by the time they got into the building. The doors were chained.
I mean that it is a single organzation. What happens in one part of it has an impacr on what happens in another.
You really are pulling at straws, firemen go into burning buildings at the peril of their lives and so should policemen. It’s not like they were outnumbered in this case.
Regarding the time line... that is your interpretation of what happened. Busting the doors open or charging through windows throwing tear gas should have all been attempted. The LEOs did nothing. I am sure the inquiry will reveal that they did not even fire one shot.Pathetic
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.