Moment of Silence for Va. Tech Victims
Pastor Dale Morgan
Apr 20, 1:38 PM EDT
*Moment of Silence for Va. Tech Victims*
By MATT APUZZO
Associated Press Writer
BLACKSBURG, Va. (AP) -- Silence fell across the Virginia Tech campus at
noon Friday and bells tolled in churches nationwide in memory of the 32
victims of the deadliest shooting rampage in modern U.S. history.
On the Virginia Tech campus, hundreds of somber students and area
residents, most wearing the school's maroon and orange, stood with heads
bowed at a memorial on the Drillfield in front of Norris Hall, where
most of the victims in Monday's massacre died. Along with the bouquets
and candles was a yellow sign covered in maroon and orange handprints,
bearing the words "Never forgotten."
"It's good to feel the love of people around you," said Alice Lo, an
alumna and friend of Jocelyne Couture-Nowak, a French instructor killed
in the massacre. "With this evil, there is still goodness."
The mourners gathered in front of simple stone memorials, each adorned
with a basket of tulips and an American flag. There were 33 stones - one
for each victim and Cho Seung-Hui, the 23-year-old gunman who took their
lives.
"His family is suffering just as much as the other families," said
Elizabeth Lineberry of Hillsville, who will be a freshman at Tech in the
fall.
As experts pored over the videotaped rant and the twisted writings of
the gunman, Gov. Timothy Kaine declared Friday a statewide day of
mourning for the victims, and parents urged everyone to focus on the
young people cut down in the attack, not the killer.
"We want the world to know and celebrate our children's lives, and we
believe that's the central element that brings hope in the midst of
great tragedy," said Peter Read, who lost his 19-year-old daughter, Mary
Karen Read. "These kids were the best that their generation has to offer."
Churches around the country, from California to the National Cathedral
in Washington, planned vigils and prayer services.
"It's a whole family," said Jan Meehan-Tardiff of Blacksburg, a nurse
who has four family members with degrees from Virginia Tech. Around
Blacksburg, "you either work at Tech, serve Tech in business or go to Tech."
President Bush wore an orange and maroon tie in a show of support. The
White House said he also asked top officials at the Justice, Health and
Human Services and Education Departments to travel the country, talk to
educators, mental health experts and others, and compile a report on how
to prevent similar tragedies.
In Richmond, several thousand people jammed the leafy expanse of Monroe
Park at Virginia Commonwealth University as a distant church bell tolled
32 times across VCU's silent urban campus. Beneath the park's massive
oaks, people stood with their heads bowed, tears welling in the eyes.
"As a parent, you just can't imagine what their families are going
through," said Diane Willard of suburban Richmond. Her own two children
attend a community college.
Nearby, James Verlander, a burly Richmond firefighter, shed tears and
tenderly recited a Christian responsive reading.
"If this doesn't hurt you, something's wrong with you," Verlander said.
As families mourned and began burying the victims, investigators worked
on the evidence and looked into the warning signs in Cho's past,
including two stalking complaints against him and a psychiatric hospital
visit in which he was found to be a danger to himself.
Police filed a search warrant for a laptop and cell phone used by one of
the first victims, Emily Hilscher, who was shot in a dormitory.
"The computer would be one way the suspect could have communicated with
the victim," the warrant said, but it offered no basis for a belief that
Cho might have been in contact with her.
Investigators are "making some really great progress" into determining
how and why the shootings happened, Virginia State Police spokeswoman
Corinne Geller said Friday. She said they hope to have something to tell
the public next week.
The governor also appointed an independent panel that includes former
Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge to look into how authorities
handled the tragedy.
Ridge said the group would look into the time lapse between the first
attack and the second, how students were notified of the dangers, and
whether privacy laws and the need to communicate for safety conflicted,
among other things.
"This was out-and-out murder," Ridge said. "This was a horribly,
horribly deranged young man."
Cho's videos, which were mailed to NBC the morning of the killings,
revealed a man angry at the world but offered little explanation of why,
other than rambling tirades against rich kids, snobs and people who had
wronged him.
As experts analyzed the disturbing materials, it became increasingly
clear that Cho was almost a classic case of a school shooter: a
painfully awkward, picked-on young man who lashed out with methodical
fury at a world he believed was out to get him.
"In virtually every regard, Cho is prototypical of mass killers that
I've studied in the past 25 years," said Northeastern University
criminal justice professor James Alan Fox, co-author of 16 books on
crime. "That doesn't mean, however, that one could have predicted his
rampage."
Among other things, the South Korean immigrant was sent to a psychiatric
hospital and pronounced an imminent danger to himself. He was accused of
stalking two women and photographing female students in class with his
cell phone. And his violence-filled writings were so disturbing he was
removed from one class, and professors begged him to get counseling.
Classmates in Virginia, where Cho grew up, said he was teased and picked
on, apparently because of shyness and his strange, mumbly way of speaking.
Among the victims of the Virginia Tech massacre were two other Westfield
High graduates, Reema Samaha and Erin Peterson. Both young women
graduated from the high school last year, but police said it is not
clear whether Cho singled them out.
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Associated Press writers Bob Lewis in Richmond, Va., Sarah Karush and
Seth Borenstein in Washington; Sharon Cohen and Lindsey Tanner in
Chicago; Vicki Smith in Blacksburg; and Genaro C. Armas in State
College, Pa., contributed to this report.