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Shooting was 'hard to stop'
21/08/2007 20:15 - (SA)
Virginia - It would have been hard to stop the Virginia Tech gunman after the initial two deaths because police did not know who they were looking for, the leader of a state study of the shootings said.
Meanwhile, a victim advocacy group filed a complaint on Monday alleging the university broke the law by not spreading word sooner about the shootings.
Seung-Hui Cho fatally shot two students in the West Ambler Johnston dorm April 16, then went on to kill 30 students and faculty members more than two hours later across campus in Norris Hall.
The campus was not warned about the threat until shortly before the Norris shootings began.
"If Cho was to have been stopped, it certainly would have had to happen before the first two hours (after the dorm shootings)," said panel chairperson W Gerald Massengill.
"The time to have stopped Cho, based on what we know now, would have been prior to" the dorm shootings.
Massengill, a former state police superintendent, spoke outside a closed meeting of the group appointed by Governor Timothy Kaine to study the massacre, which ended when Cho committed suicide.
The eight-member panel privately consulted with attorneys and discussed confidential records and information on Monday as it reviewed the report, to be submitted to Kaine and released publicly on Friday.
Massengill's comments came as Security on Campus filed a complaint with the US Department of Education, alleging that the university violated a federal law requiring colleges to disclose campus crime information in a timely fashion.
Virginia Tech could have issued a warning earlier, said Catherine Bath, executive director of the advocacy group.
"They could've issued a warning within 10 minutes in the morning," she said.
Mark Owczarski, a Tech spokesperson, said on Monday afternoon - the first day of fall classes - that he had not seen the 34-page complaint. "At this point we're just kind of focused in on the first day of school," he said.
The Education Department has received the complaint, and it is being reviewed, said spokesperson Samara Yudof.
The Education Department can fine colleges and universities up to $27 500 for each violation of the Clery Act or can suspend them from participating in federal student financial aid programmes.
The law is named after Jeanne Clery, a student at Pennsylvania's Lehigh University who was raped and killed in her dorm room in 1986.
The panel studying the shootings reviewed Cho's scholastic, mental health and medical records; personnel matters; and law enforcement's response to the killings and the criminal investigation.
Panel members had 300-page draft reports. Discussions in the closed session were to determine whether the full document was ready by the end of the week, Massengill said.
Family members of the slain and injured are expected to be offered information from the report before it is made public.
- AP
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