<p>The NY Times reported today that the state's official report was revised regarding the timeline and actions involved in the killing rampage that killed 32 students and faculty members. </p>
<p>Most disturbing was that the administration locked down their own offices and alerted family members more than an hour and a half before the rest of the campus was alerted. One secretary alerted her son (living on campus) at 8 a.m. about the shootings. </p>
<p>It needs to be acknowledged that taking action (with imperfect information) could possibly result in making matters worse. That said, this is not a 15 minute window that went by - this is 90 minutes. Meanwhile one policy board member assigned to make decisions during this crisis is e-mailing somebody in Richmond saying that one student is dead and another critically wounded. "Gunman on the loose" ... "this is not releasable yet." </p>
<p>This on top of the missing mental-health records of the gunman (Cho) discovered in the home of the former director of the university's counseling clinic this summer. </p>
<p>How does this information only become available 2 1/2 years after the shootings? How does a kid in a dorm whose mother calls him at 8 a.m. to tell him about the shooting NOT become news? </p>
<p>As a parent, this disturbs me greatly. I can only begin to imagine how the family's of the victims feel about this new information.</p>
<p>And that was a helicopter mom who called her son to wake him up. </p>
<p>The lost file suddenly found in July about Cho’s mental health was one reason for the addendum.</p>
<p>Most striking to me was the realization of the many lost opportunities to “connect the dots.” VT did not understand the privacy laws (as so many other colleges/universities didn’t and possibly still don’t). Of course, this realization was also evident after the initial report.</p>
<p>I found it quite disturbing that the girl killed in the dorm was alive in a hospital, yet her parents were never contacted until after she had died.</p>
<p>I, too, read that article this morning and was left shaking my head. I am increasingly aware that schools are not equipped to handle these situations no matter how many drills they run or procedures they have in place. It is also evident that schools are not equipped to help kids with varying degrees of mental illness–even those much less severe than Cho. Managing meds, therapies, social and academic pressures is highly stressful and continues to end in tragedy–whether it be murder or suicide or both. The fact that VT mishandled this and seemingly tried to hide facts is not surprising. These new facts about the administration’s actions are unfortunately even more disturbing than the previously revealed ones. And regarding the young woman who was still alive when she arrived at the hospital, well I cannot even imagine what her parents must think after learning of that. One thing I am certain of is that my D’s school is not a “parent” and won’t care for her in any substantive way–that’s my job. Even if she is technically an adult, she is not completely independent as a full-time student. (I personally think these privacy laws relative to students’ health need to be re-written.) So, as a parent I have to be involved and informed when it come to my D’s healthcare and I have to make sure she has a good understanding of her school’s emergency response plans and is aware of what to do to keep herself safe in challenging situations.</p>
<p>when there are so many areas where the well being of the students did not come first in a timely fashion, I can’t help but feel it was part of the culture or at least those in upper administration who did not lay out higher expectations of procedure.</p>
<p>This isn’t a comment about the delays or the revisions - agree with OP - rather it’s about the remarks about us only connecting the dots in hindsight. </p>
<p>There is no simple answer to this; Our system has checks that have contradictory goals, usually pitching the rights of an individual (privacy, to be judged on individual behavior versus stereotypical, etc) versus the rights of society as a whole (to be protected against actions such as this). </p>
<p>Let’s say everyone concerned knew the facts about Cho’s or the Fort Hood doctor’s mental state the day before the event - as long as they didn’t have a history of acting on these thoughts, they couldn’t have done anything other than offer help, which Cho could have declined. Can you imagine the uproar that would have been caused had Major Hasan been picked up the day before the attack?</p>
<p>What I’m saying is that in our system, connecting the dots, or acting upon connected dots is not permitted prior to the tragedy (or severely restricted) because we balance the damage with the rights of those who think like the Chos and Hasans but don’t actually act upon those thoughts.</p>
<p>The other aspect of life that occurs is that there is a lot of information flooding the system that it is sometimes easy to miss the significance of one fact or another until after the tragic event has occurred. </p>
<p>For example, in the lead up to 9/11, an FBI agent thought it was very strange that young Arab men were taking flying lessons but weren’t interested in take offs and landings. He couldn’t convince any of his higher ups that this fact should ring alarm bells.</p>