Last content update and data verfication was on Wednesday, October 16, 2024, at 07:20:11 (America/New York — EST — UTC -5) by MEB MediaX Webmaster or authorized designee.
Details
- Mass Shooting
- Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech)
- Municipality
- Blacksburg
- State
- Virginia – VA
- Zip Code
- 24060
- Region
- South
- Division
- South Atlantic
- Incident Date
- April 16, 2007
- Venue Type
- School-College/University
- Killed
- 32
- Injured
- 23
Ranking Data
- Preventable Factors/Rankings
- Blatant Rankings - Points Doubled
- 3
- Preventable Rankings Score
- 18
- Preventable Status
- Somewhat Preventable
Preventable Factors
- Preventable Factor Details
Last content update and data verfication was on Wednesday, October 16, 2024, at 07:20:11 (America/New York — EST — UTC -5) by MEB MediaX Webmaster or authorized designee.
Takeaways:
—Communications amongst and between is vital in most every situation, but with incidents it can be life or death.
—People often go on spending sprees, but when a spending spree involves buying products that can be used in lethal ways people need to take notice and blow the whistle.
—Too many people in positions of authority are more concerned with individual rights than the rights of society as a whole.
Incident Preventable Factors:
—Behavioral Red Flags Ignored/Response Delayed – Perpetrator Behavior Personally Erratic/Deviated from Individual/Societal Norms:
“The lack of information sharing among academic, administrative, and public safety entities at Virginia Tech [Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University] and the students who had raised concerns about [the perpetrator] contributed to the failure to see the big picture. In the English Department alone, many professors encountered similar difficulties with [the perpetrator]—non-participation in class, limited responses to efforts to personally interact, dark writings, reflector glasses, hat pulled low over face. Although to any one professor these signs might not necessarily raise red flags, the totality of the reports would have and should have raised alarms.” The Care Team at Virginia Tech [No Link Found] was established as a means of identifying and working with students who have problems. That resource, however, was ineffective in connecting the dots or heeding the red flags that were so apparent with [the perpetrator]. They failed for various reasons, both as a team and in some cases in the individual offices that make up the core of the team. 1 In fact, after killing two students at a campus dormitory, and before he continued killing, he returned to his own dormitory room and recorded the following: “You had a hundred billion chances and ways to have avoided today, but you decided to spill my blood. You forced me into a corner and gave me only one option. The decision was yours. Now you have blood on your hands that will never wash off.”2 This is deemed blatant and therefore the ranking points have been doubled.
—Behavioral Red Flags Ignored/Response Delayed – Perpetrator Was in Directed and Overt Incident Preparatory Mode:
Perpetrator was definitely in preparatory mode for several months prior to the incident. Refer to a list of 13 excerpts in the recently released book Soft Targets and Crowded Places (ST-CP) which are from the report “Mass Shootings at Virginia Tech” in the section “Chapter III – Timeline of Events”. 3
—Criminal Justice System Failures – Judicial System Failure – Questionable “Blue Paper” Rejections of Perpetrator:
A Virginia special justice declared the perpetrator mentally ill and ordered him to attend treatment. However, because he was not institutionalized, he was allowed to purchase guns.
—Gun Laws Inadequate – Inadequate Gun Law(s) Contributed to Perpetrator Execution of the Incident:
The shooting prompted the State of Virginia to close legal loopholes that had allowed individuals adjudicated as mentally unsound to purchase handguns without detection by the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS). It also led to passage of the only major federal gun control measure in the United States since 1994. The law strengthening the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) was signed by President George W. Bush on January 5, 2008. 4 5
—Mental Health System Failures/Interventions Lacking – Incident Principals Attested to Mental Health System Failure for Perpetrator(s):
As illustrated.
—Unnecessarily Accessible Perpetrator Weapon(s) – Weapon(s) Was Unnecessarily Accessible to the Perpetrator:
As illustrated.
Source(s):
1. None. August 2007. “Mass Shootings at Virginia Tech – April 16, 2007”. Report of the Review Panel. Retrieved (Downloaded) October 31, 2019, from https://scholar.lib.vt.edu/prevail/docs/VTReviewPanelReport.pdf.
2. Hausman, Sandy. April 13, 2015. “Lessons Learned at Virginia Tech: What Went Wrong?”. Virginia’s Public Radio. Retereived June 25, 2021 from https://www.wvtf.org/post/lessons-learned-virginia-tech-what-went-wrong#stream/0.
3. None. August 2007. “Mass Shootings at Virginia Tech – April 16, 2007”. Report of the Review Panel. Retrieved (Downloaded) October 31, 2019, from https://scholar.lib.vt.edu/prevail/docs/VTReviewPanelReport.pdf.
4. None. May 17, 2021. “Virginia Tech shooting”. Wikipedia. Retereived June 25, 2021, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Tech_shooting.
5. Cochran, John. January 12, 2008. “New Gun Control Law Is Killer’s Legacy”. ABC News. Retereived June 25, 2021, from https://abcnews.go.com/print?id=4126152.
Fluidity
- Criminal Case Pending?
- Civil Litigation Pending?
- Trending
- ⯀
Administrative Information
- Credible Source Inquires?
- 5
- Are Credible Source Inquires Inline Endnotes?
- Assessment Status?
- Complete
- Editorial Board Approval?
Record Information
- Last Updated
- Lexar
- Record ID
- 4
- Private ID
- 2OT8B31
- Date Recorded
- 2021-05-13 17:40:43
- Date Updated
- 2023-10-24 03:15:17
- Last Accessed
- Type Designation