by John M. Curtis
(310) 204-8700

Copyright April 18, 2007
All Rights Reserved.

ost-mortem psychological autopsies are never easy but provide a hidden X-ray into the mind of 23-year-old Virginia Tech mass murderer Seung-Hui Cho, who gunned down 32 students and faculty April 16 in the worst killing spree in U.S. history. Making sense out of senseless murders helps prevent future episodes or at least provide a blueprint for dealing with potentially violent individuals. Two-and-half years before Cho unloaded his semiautomatics at Virginia Tech, a Montgomery County, Va. court ruled that Cho presented “an imminent danger to self or others,” providing the legal grounds for involuntary psychiatric confinement. Cho was accused at the time of stalking two female schoolmates. According to a “temporary detention order” obtained by ABC News, hospital psychologist Roy Crouse misread Cho, concluding, “his insight and judgment are normal.”

      Common sense tells you that no stalker has normal “judgment and insight,” and presents a danger to self or others. “He denies suicidal ideation. He does not acknowledge symptoms of a thought disorder,” said Crouse's report. Psychiatric patients rarely admit to the presence of suicidal, homicidal or criminal thoughts. Mental heath professionals must carefully weigh the risk of violence or other forms of victimization. California law requires practitioners to breach patients' privacy rights when they present an imminent danger. Like other dangerous patients, Cho was released Dec. 15, 2005 from the Carlion St. Albans psychiatric hospital near Virginia Tech and ordered into outpatient treatment. Financial woes cause psychiatric hospitals to dump otherwise dangerous patients onto the streets. Two years later, Cho's mental illness erupted like Mt. Vesuvius.

      Whatever Crouse saw in 2005, it didn't compel longer confinement. When Cho failed to follow-up with his court-ordered counseling, Virginia Tech should have obtained a restraining order and suspended him from school. His reinstatement should have been contingent on a reevaluation of his mental status, including a careful assessment of his dangerousness. Only two months before Cho's hospitalization, his English professor Lucinda Roy saw such disturbing themes in his writing she notified her department chair Carolyn Rude and referred Cho to counseling. Roy admitted feeling so intimidated tutoring Cho in fall 2005 that she developed an emergency plan. Once Cho was hospitalized and identified as “an imminent danger to self or others,” he should have been suspended from school, removed campus pending psychiatric clearance and ordered into treatment.

      Virginia Tech officials bear liability for retaining a student identified by a psychiatric evaluation as “a danger to self or others.” His professors and classmates tried to intervene but were told by campus officials and law enforcement that nothing could be done unless Cho acted unlawfully. “We always joked we were just waiting for him to do something, waiting to hear about something he did,” said classmate Stephanie Derry. “But when I got the call it was Cho who had done this, I started crying, bawling,” realizing she had ignored the warnings. When NBC received a package April 18 with a DVD of Cho announcing his expected rampage only minutes before it occurred, it stunned viewers. Cho showed little emotion during his DVD or violent rampage where he shot many victims in the head a point-blank range, demonstrating a perverted kind of compulsion.

      Cho had the lethal combination of a loner's personality with a paranoid psychotic core. During the lead-up to his rampage, he obsessed over the 2004 Cannes' Film Festival Grand Prix winner South Korean "Oldboy,” an “ultra-violent film about obsession and revenge.” Cho's reclusiveness and paranoia helped spawn the fantasy world in which he planned and executed the most deadly killing spree in U.S. history. After killing two in the dorms at 7:15 AM, Cho then reloaded and mailed a package to NBC News in New York containing a DVD documenting his madness. Over two hours later, he returned to campus and began his massacre at Harris Hall. Campus officials did nothing other than a few ambiguous e-mails to warn students and faculty that a dangerous killer remained at large. Not only did Virginia Tech officials ignore the warnings they failed to act on the day of the murders.

      Cho's recognized mental illness played a critical role in the eventual massacre. Campus officials had every opportunity to suspend Cho over two years before he committed mass murder. Returning Cho to class after his psychiatric hospitalization contributed to the eventual massacre by placating a dangerous mental illness before the tragic calamity. Virginia Tech officials should have a plan for keeping dangerously mentally students off campus. Ignoring the warning signs was bad enough but failing to warn students and faculty immediately after Cho's 7:15 AM murders seems inexcusable. VT president Charles Steger insisted that, “We can only make decisions based on information you had at the time,” assuming after Cho's first two killings that the campus was safe. What makes the massacre so tragic is that Virginia Tech ignored the warnings and could've done more.

About the Author

John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news. He's editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.

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