Continuing Coverage by:

Virginia Tech Panel Vows Public Discussion

July 20, 2007

By Carlos Santos and Rex Bowman

CHARLOTTESVILLE — Amid grumbling from some victims' families, the leader of the panel reviewing the Virginia Tech massacre said the group will discuss its draft report before the public to ensure trust in its findings.

"There will be one final public meeting next month where the public can see the panel discuss the issues," Col. W. Gerald Massengill said yesterday after a closed meeting in Charlottesville. "We'll be working in public, and I know it's unusual and maybe a little dangerous, but we want to have transparency. The transparency is needed to gain the trust of the public."

Some families, though, could end up dissatisfied with the panel's findings no matter what level of transparency it achieves.

Vincent Bove, a New Jersey security specialist who says he has been authorized to speak on behalf of seven families who had members killed or wounded in the April attack, said yesterday that families will regard the panel as legitimate only if it flatly states that Tech put the victims in harm's way.

"I can tell you Virginia Tech unequivocally and without a doubt failed to protect these students and these professors," Bove said. "These people did not need to die."

Virginia Tech student Seung-Hui Cho, a mentally unstable senior, killed 32 students and teachers on April 16 before killing himself in the largest massacre on a university campus in U.S. history.

Gov. Timothy M. Kaine created the panel to review what happened and why.

But Massengill suggested that the final report — which will be sent to Kaine — will specifically look not only at what happened but at what should have happened.

"We will point out if a decision was made that should have been made differently," Massengill said. "If the investigation points to a position that didn't perform as it should, it will be obvious. This is not a 'gotcha' report or meant to point fingers, but we want to point out as clearly as we can what the truth is."

Massengill said issues such as Cho's mental history and the response by Tech officials and police will be discussed in that final public meeting. "There will be some privacy laws we'll have to step around," Massengill said. "But we're going to report what we find whether it's an action or an inaction."

Bove said Tech's first failure was in not noticing the "red flags" of Cho's behavior — behavior that should have prompted Tech to bar him from campus. Tech also failed when it did not notify everyone on campus immediately after Cho shot two students at the West Ambler Johnston Hall dormitory, Bove said. The school sent out a campuswide e-mail alert about two hours after the shooting — just before the shootings in Norris Hall. Bove said Tech should have had locks on the doors inside Norris, where Cho killed 30 of his 32 victims.

"This panel without any hesitation should state that this tragedy was preventable and people who showed a lack of judgment must be held accountable," Bove said. "Otherwise it's a sham."

Massengill, however, said he was "not aware of any decision that could have been made during that two hours that would have saved lives."

Massengill spoke to reporters in Charlottesville after an almost five-hour closed meeting of the eight panel members, its staff and lawyers held to hammer out the draft report. Another closed meeting will be held Tuesday in Charlottesville to finish the task.

The panel met Wednesday at the University of Virginia in a public meeting in which it heard that the state's mental-health system needs reform to help prevent a similar incident

Also yesterday, lawyer Thomas J. Fadoul Jr., who speaks on behalf of some of the victims' families, met with Kenneth Feinberg, the lawyer charged with disbursing $7 million in donations that Tech has received in the wake of the tragedy.

Feinberg has proposed a plan in which families of those killed by Cho would receive up to $150,000 each from the donations, while families of the wounded would receive smaller amounts. Fadoul said the families are upset about Feinberg's proposal to set a Sept. 15 deadline for families to apply for the money.

Contact Carlos Santos at csantos@timesdispatch.com or (804) 339-6306.

Contact Rex Bowman at rbowman@timesdispatch.com or (540) 344-3612.