The Hindsight Culture

[tomndebb]

[QUOTE=RTFirefly]
Tom, I’m still curious about your claim that the police had a “likely suspect” in custody. Again, all I see is that the police knew of the existence of a boyfriend, and dispatched some uniforms to bring him in.

Even if they managed to bring Thornhill in before Cho started shooting up Norris Hall, I don’t see that even that demonstrates more than the police knew of the existence of a boyfriend, and were able to even put their hands on him.
[/QUOTE]
It was mentioned in two or three of the dozens of stories that were out that day, (often feeding off themselves, I am sure), most of which have been overwritten by updates. It is entirely possible that the stories that claimed the police were interviewing a suspect were exaggerated versions of an initial claim that the police “had” a suspect (other than Cho).

We have recently been running just short of 10 on-campus killings each year. (2003 - 6; 2004 - 8; 2005 - 5) (although we had 11 and 20 in 1999 and 2000, but it is unclear whether they were all on campus.) Have we shut down each campus where a murder occurred? If so, cite? If not, have any led to similar massacres?

I’m not going to battle this to the ground. Given that the assailant killed one woman and then killed one man who went to her assistance, then disappeared, what would cause the police to consider this the first salvo of a murder spree?

If it makes you happy to join the blame crowd, have at it.

[Quiddity_Glomfuster]

All this ‘let’s make excuses for the authorities’ is ridiculous. How do you warn people? The same way you do about any emergency - fire, flood, earthquake, tsunami, tornado. You have procedures in place and you act on them.

Already many universities have pointed out that they already have procedures in place for just such incidents - which include sounding alarms that mean students are to check their emails and text messages.

People off-campus can then be warned by people on campus (as indeed happened - but far too late).

You ask why assume it wasn’t ‘just a domestic incident’? Because even in domestic incidents, often the shooters go on to kill others. Basically, if a shooter is on campus and somebody is shot, until the shooter is found or determined definitively to be offsite, it is not that impossible to take measures to protect everyone else. Again, campuses are closed all the time for snow days - it’s not that difficult.

It is pathetic to be making excuses for what the administration failed to do. If other universities and organizations have policies and procedures in place, then all should.

What happened is that a small-town, possibly unsophisticated police force and university administration had a big-city problem to deal with and had never planned for it. With luck, this will persuade every institution, even in Bogville Butt, Whatsisstate, will put a plan into place for situations such as this.

[RTFirefly]

[QUOTE=tomndebb]
I’m not going to battle this to the ground.
[/quote]
That’s fine, but I’m not sure what position you’re taking, really. What would you battle for, if you did stick around?

It was mentioned in two or three of the dozens of stories that were out that day, (often feeding off themselves, I am sure), most of which have been overwritten by updates. It is entirely possible that the stories that claimed the police were interviewing a suspect were exaggerated versions of an initial claim that the police “had” a suspect (other than Cho).

OK, so we don’t know nothin’ about this.

We have recently been running just short of 10 on-campus killings each year. (2003 - 6; 2004 - 8; 2005 - 5) (although we had 11 and 20 in 1999 and 2000, but it is unclear whether they were all on campus.)

And you agree that we have a pretty small data pool of on-campus killings. (19 in the past 3 years, although 31 in two years in 2000-01. So 10 a year, in the 5 years we know about.) So, what do we know about those 50? Anything, besides the sheer numbers?

Have we shut down each campus where a murder occurred? If so, cite? If not, have any led to similar massacres?

Well, back atcha, my original question: how many of these were ‘domestic’ killings?

No, I don’t know how many of those campuses were shut down when a murder occurred there. Without a lick of actual knowledge, though, I’m willing to bet that the answer is, even of the ones where they either caught or killed the perpetrator, or where the perp killed himself, that they shut down the college for the day at most of them, simply because of the effect on the students.

Besides, even if the answer is zero, what does this have to do with anything I’m saying? I have not argued in this thread (or any other thread that I can remember) that anyone should have closed a campus. Can we, pretty please, give this a rest??

Given that the assailant killed one woman and then killed one man who went to her assistance, then disappeared, what would cause the police to consider this the first salvo of a murder spree?

It’s simply that you don’t withhold information such as this from the public. If there’s a present danger, you alert people to it. In what way can keeping such info closely held benefit anyone?

No, you don’t know what will happen next. But you do these things to reduce the risk that even one more person might be killed.

Do you shut down Virginia Tech, or the town of Blacksburg? I don’t know; like I said, not my issue. Should they have called the local radio stations, warning them that a killer was on the loose? Yes. Should they have emailed all the students, faxed all the academic departments, etc.? Yes.

If it makes you happy to join the blame crowd, have at it.

Tom, this isn’t worthy of you.