If you attended Virginia Tech?

Question

Would you return the next semester, knowing how poorly the school handled the situation, and how little they did to stop it? Granted, no one is prepared for situations like this when they happen, but freakin' elementary schools have practice lockdowns for dealing with "code greens". Why did they think an e-mail was enough crisis response? And after the guy left, why didn't they try to find him? There are just a lot of questions that school needs to answer, I think.

It's not so much a response to this situation (which would traumatize me to the point where I couldn't return, anyway), it's just a demonstration of how poorly prepared they were. They couldn't have stopped it, but they could have dramatically reduced the impact.

It could have happened anywhere, but it didn't. And an immediate lockdown of any school where a shooting happens, even if it isn't suspected of being a massacre, is generally considered standard procedure. So if there were police everywhere around one campus, why wasn't the second completely shut off from entry or exit? I don't need to watch the news to know that makes no sense.

Well, a double homicide hardly constitutes "every crime", but I see your point. However, they should have restricted access to all non-riot control personel, not just for the murders, but for the panic that would inevitably follow, you see?

I am in no way blaming the school for what that psychopath did. I just hope they learn from this and critically re-examine their security procedure, so that something this catastrophic never happens again.

I attended a college in Ohio that was a similar size, and the entire school was locked down within 25 minutes after a bomb scare, so it's possible. I'm not sure how, but it is.

Also, they could have totally evacuated the building in the two hours between shootings.

Answer 1

They didn't even have a telephone tree for communication following an emergency. The response was tepid and poorly organized.

I would transfer to MIT.

Answer 2

I don't think they could have done anything to prevent it, especially given that the person who was the shooter was a student. Even if they controlled access to each building (something like a card key), he could still have gotten in because he WAS a student. When you look at it in sequence instead of hindsight, the fact that a shooting had occurred in a dormitory was very bad, of course, but given that they thought it was a "domestic" quarrel and presumed to be over, shutting down the school wouldn't have made much sense; if you shut down the school for every crime that occurs in a group of people that big, the school will never be OPEN. It's only in hindsight that one knows that this person was not finished killing people.

I couldn't help thinking of my own alma mater, which is a school in Texas that's just about the same size, or a little larger. It's such a different situation than a public school with two or three thousand students, all effectively operating on the same schedule, and all very much under the control of the school authorities. In a university of that size, there are classes all the way from seven in the morning to about 10 or 11 p.m. at night. People are coming and going at all hours, and that doesn't include the graduate students, laboratories, music practice halls, libraries, and similar facilities. While a public school is a group of what are legally and effectively children, a university is a much bigger group of adults with free will. The twenty-six thousand students also doesn't take into account the faculty, support staff (maintenance, janitorial, secretaries, food service personnel, etc.). That's like shutting down a small city, and I honestly don't know how one would go about doing it, especially when they're scattered over hundreds of acres of land. It's not as though you can go lock a few doors and the school is "locked down."

Given all those things above, I would go back to the school. It's very difficult for most of us to accept that the world is not always a safe place, or to really comprehend that what we do every day of the world is a small but finite risk. If you try to be absolutely safe, you will be forever paralyzed, because there is no such thing as absolute safety. I personally would choose to go on with my life, and keep on going to school there. An education is a tremendously important thing, and I would not want the very small risk that someone was going to do something like this stop me from getting that education. Just as I don't let the possibility that a plane might crash or that I might be involved in an auto accident stop me from traveling, I would accept the fact that life isn't always safe, and keep doing what I was doing.

Answer 3

I do not know if I would be able to return, but I certainly don't blame those who don't return.

From what I have heard so far, it is unfair to blame the school for their response to the first shooting. What would make them believe that a massacre was going to occur 2 hours later? I don't think anyone could have predicted what happened or prevented it. Even if they shut the school down after the first shooting - the perp could have just lurked around the buildings and shot the kids as they walked out of the school.

Then everyone would be complaining that the school shouldn't have reacted that way and they are responsible! It is just not fair. Put the blame where it belongs. The shooter and no one else.

Answer 4

Yes I would return. The school in my opinion did everything they could. It is not the schools fault it happened but the person who actully pulled the trigor is the only one at fault. As far as your questions go...They felt like the first incident was an isolated one and had no reason to think differenty. The police were interviewing a suspect off campus when the second shooting happend. They thought they had to guy. They did not try and find the guy cause they thought they had him. As far as the e-mails.. can you think of a better way for them to notify over 20 thousand people??? Most of them they said do not even check voicemail but always e-mail. I think the school did very well with what information they had at the time. Plus you mentioned elementary schools... Va Tech is hundreds of acres big i think like 2600 and they have hundreds of bulidings... how in the hell do you lock down something that big in very little time?????? I think a elemtary school and even a high school is alot smaller and alot easier to lock down,.

Answer 5

I don't believe the school handled it poorly. When they arrived at the first scene, they had to figure out what happened! They were out searching for whom they thought was involved, but the info that the witnesses had given them sent them in the wrong direction. It is easy to lock down 500 kids, try locking down 26,000 students and 10,000 faculty when all of them aren't even on campus. It's easy to lock down a playground, trying locking down 2,600 acres!!! I think they did the best they could with the info they had at the time. Hind sight is always 20/20. Have you been on that campus? It takes a good 30 minutes to walk from point a to point b and not to mention all the people around you. Everyone blends in and there is no way to tell who belongs and who doesn't!

Answer 6

You can't blame the school for notifying the students by email. They didn't have the resources to notify such a large group in that period of time any other way and it's not like they could predict the second shooting. At the time it looked like a isolated shooting with domestic ties, not an all out killing rampage.

Answer 7

Yes, those of us with roots in Virginia realize that it's a cursed school. It's also where Morgan Harrington, David Lee Metzer and Heidi Childs went to school (all 2008-2009 unsolved murders).

Answer 8

I'd think that i would certainly return... it's not like the school could have stopped it, it would have played out the same way anywhere else in the country

it sucks but it's true.

chances are several million times more likely that i'd be killed on my way to class by a car veering off the road than by a gunman shooting 50+ students while i'm there...

Answer 9

A friends daughter goes to school at Tech and lives in West Ambler Hall. She was at a dentist appt that morning and got back to her room at 8:30. She said the police were everywhere. So what you're hearing on the news isn't true. There was so much commotion and confusion going on. Unfortunately she won't be going back. She said she can't go back knowing what happened.

Answer 10

It's really sad this happened, but it could have happened any where. When it's your time to go it's your time. No matter where you are or what your doing. The school, administrator's, faculty, if they knew could have been more involved in getting the word out. I think I would probably return.