Tommy Edwards plays guitar on 4/16/08, A Day of Remembrance, to raise awareness for The Heart of Virginia Foundation. Edwards started this foundation after the tragedy to raise awareness of mental health issues. Photo by Roger Gupta. -- Original Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/spector1/2457759237/
The Commemoration speeches on 4/16/08, A Day of Remembrance, were given in sign language as well. Photo by Roger Gupta. -- Original Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/spector1/2457762319/
Guards from the Corps of Cadets stand by at the memorial site. On 4/16/08 a special anniversary candle and wreath were placed at the memorial site. Photo by Roger Gupta. -- Original Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/spector1/2457724149/in/set-72157604566974642/
Dr. Roger Passman April 18, 2007 Reporting for Reuters, Andrea Hopkins writes: By all accounts, the prayers started even before the gunshots stopped at Virginia Tech university, and the pleas to God from grief-stricken survivors of the massacre have continued ever since. "God cares about Virginia Tech," said Megan Martin, 24, joining about a dozen fellow students in a traveling prayer vigil that rambled across the sprawling campus a day after the worst U.S. shooting spree in modern history. Carrying placards reading: "Jesus loves you," "God knows and He cares," and "Can we pray with you?" the small knot of students worked their way through the university grounds in Blacksburg, a Bible Belt town in the mountains of southwest Virginia. I suppose turning to God(s) cannot do any serious harm to the individual that does the turning. The evidence, however, does not justify such a move. "God cares about Virginia Tech," said Megan Martin, is quoted in the article. Is this God so cruel that he (she, it) only cares after the fact? Is this God(s) so indifferent that he (she, it) only takes an interest after the dastardly deed has been accomplished? God knows and He cares, is another after the fact fantasy that may serve to salve heightened emotions but does not address the fundamental issue-was this God who cares so much simply on vacation when Cho Seung-Hui decided to engage on a shooting rampage on the VT campus? Does the evidence point to a God(s) who cares, who knows? I think not. What the evidence points to is a random series of events that occur every so often because Americans are willing to sacrifice security for the right to bear arms for any purpose whatsoever. The evidence does not point to a loving God(s) but, rather, to a heightened probability that because guns are so readily available in the United States tragic events such as the VT shootings are more likely than not to occur. While turning to God(s) is a defensive move in cases of unthinkable tragedy for many people, it seems to me that it is simply a misplaced use of human energy. Telling one's self that God(s) really care, while that might have a temporary calming effect, does nothing to solve the problem that lies at the root of the VT shootings. Far more productive an approach is to focus the anger and frustration one feels in moments of unspeakable tragedy into efforts to place meaningful regulation on the ownership of weapons that have no other use than to cause permanent harm to those to whom the guns are directed. Gun nuts that demand no regulation of weapons spouting rights granted under the 2nd Amendment to the Constitution of the United States (A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed,) must ask: to what militia did Cho Seung-Hui belong when he began his rampage? Why was Cho Seung-Hui permitted to purchase and own guns? Why do we put up with this cowboy mentality? Is life really imitating the wild west shootout of the movies? Rather than turning to God(s) how about turning to Congress and demanding that your lawmakers do something to prevent tragedies like this from ever happening again. If you don't then, it seems to me, that events like the VT shootings will surely occur over and over, again and again. One Italian journalist wrote that the VT shootings are as American as apple pie. It this the image America and Americans portray to the world? Is this the image we want to portray? It is time to stop the madness. -- Original Source: http://rpassman.wordpress.com/2007/04/18/vt-students-turn-to-god/ Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States.
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Romanian born Hero Liviu Librescu received Highest Award
[April 18] Romanian born Hero Liviu Librescu received Highest Award romanian-gymnastics.com BUCHAREST/ The President of Romania, Traian Basescu, has signed today, April the 18th the year to end, the decree concerning the post-mortem conferring of the National Order The Star of Romania with the rank of Grand Cross to Mr. Liviu Librescu, Ph.D., University Professor. The National Order The Star of Romania with the rank of High Cross has been conferred as a sign of high appreciation and gratitude for the entire scientific and academic activity, as well as for the heroism shown in the course of the tragic events which took place on April the 16th, 2007, in the Campus of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, the United States of America, through which he saved the lives of his students, sacrificing his own life. -- Original Source:http://www.romanian-gymnastics.com/news/2007/04/romanian_born_hero_received_highest_award.htm
I was fortunate to teach Leslie Sherman in my Advanced Placement European History course at West Springfield High School. She was a wonderful student with a creative mind and a great sense of humor. She was especially known for her beautiful smile and positive attitude. Leslie was always happy and cheerful and brought out the best in others. Academically, she was brilliant without being "bookish." During her senior year, she served as president of our History Honor Society and was awarded the Social Studies Department Award for outstanding scholarship. She also ran on our school cross country team for four straight years, so she was truly a gifted student-athlete. After graduation, Leslie frequently came back to visit us at West Springfield, and we were not surprised to learn that she was majoring in history and international relations at Virginia Tech. She loved history so much. Her death has come as a shock to all of us at West Springfield High School, and we are only now coming to grips with this tragedy. Last Friday we had "Hokie Hope Day" at West Springfield. Almost everyone - students, faculty, and staff - wore Virginia Tech colors in tribute to Leslie and the other victims of the Virginia Tech shootings. Our school has established a scholarship in Leslie's name and contributions have already been made by students, teachers, and parents. Our school's National Honor Society made lapel ribbons with Hokie colors and sold them for a dollar to raise funds for the scholarship. They sold over 800 ribbons. A group of alumni is planning a West Springfield memorial run to raise money for the scholarship. I have written a song for Leslie which I hope to record so that we can sell copies to raise money for the scholarship. Others events and fundraisers will be planned by different groups in the future. The family has also requested that contributions be made to the scholarship fund in lieu of flowers. On Tuesday, April 24, friends and family gathered at the Demaine Funeral Home in Springfield. Many people came to pay their sad respects. I was most impressed with Leslie's family. Her Father Tony, mother Holly, and sister Lisa carried themselves with a grace and dignity that was truly inspiring. I spoke with Tony at length about his daughter. He told us of the events of April 16 and how he and his wife could not reach Leslie and eventually were informed of her death when two policemen knocked on their door late that night. Leslie's mother is a veteran and her father is in the reserves. Both, I am sure, drew on their military training and experience to face this tragedy with tremendous courage. They strength and calm demeanor did more that anything to honor their fallen daughter. The funeral was held yesterday, April 25, at the Old Presbyterian Meeting House in Old Town Alexandria at 11:00 am. Here, in a building where George Washington frequently worshipped, hundreds came to say good-bye. Many current and former students from West Springfield attended the ceremony including many from Virginia Tech. Many of her teachers attended as well. Also attending were Leslie's counselor from Tech and a member of the Board of Visitors. (Leslie's counselor told me that this was her fourth funeral in three days.) The ceremony was solemn and dignified. No members of the family or friends spoke in accordance with the strict tradition of this particular church. The hymns were all traditional and from the Presbyterian hymnal: Sing Praise to God, Who Reigns Above; Amazing Grace; and O Love That Wilt Not Let Me Go. Following the funeral service, we all gathered in front of the church for a time of fellowship and consolation. The street in front of the church had been closed off by the police in advance although some news media vehicles had been allowed to park on the far side of the street opposite the Meeting House. There were many hugs and many, many tears by both students and adults. The news media filmed and took pictures from across the street. (Cameras were not allowed inside the church.) I was approached by one newspaper reporter (Washington Times) and one television reporter (Channel 7 News) for comments about Leslie. I declined. Partly, this was due to my frustration with the media's coverage of the entire event with its sensational emphasis on the shooter instead of his victims. Also, I did not want to appear to be grandstanding or calling attention to myself on this very sad day. At 1:30 pm, the funeral procession began its long, slow journey to Arlington National Cemetery. This was a profoundly moving experience. There must have been 50 or 60 cars in the procession which stretched for well over a mile. Police and sheriff officers had closed all cross streets along our path so we moved at a steady pace. Some officers saluted as we passed by. One woman stood at attention with her hand over her heart. The ceremony at Arlington was simple and dignified. The color guard carried the casket from the hearse to the grave. The preacher said his prayers. We recited the Our Father. There was a moment of silence. A three-gun salute from off in the distance. Then it was done. But it is not over. Those of us who knew and loved Leslie will never forget her. I taught her about history, but she taught me about life. Her positive spirit, energy and love of life have left an indelible impression on many people. Her tireless efforts to help those less fortunate have touched the lives of so many. Her memory will live on in our hearts and minds forever. A final note on all of this. The internet has played a significant role for all of us in trying to make sense of this senseless act. Any number of "tribute" pages can be found where people have posted messages and shared their thoughts. In Leslie's case, these have included The Washington Post, New York Times, CNN, Legacy.com, and others. A Google search on "Leslie Sherman" reveals an almost endless variety of websites and postings about Leslie including photos and biographical material as well as remembrances and condolences to the family. Many of these messages are from people who did not know Leslie or any of the other victims. Yet, people somehow have gained a sense of connectedness by expressing their thoughts and emotions in this new virtual "public square." I think the impact of this kind of digital gathering place is only now being recognized as an important new characteristic of our modern culture. It has helped me, and perhaps many others, to comprehend the incomprehensible loss of Leslie's life.
West Springfield High School Remembers Leslie Sherman
This is the marquee sign at West Springfield High School in Springfield, Virginia. Photograph taken on April 27, 2007 by Ronald Maggiano.
Virginia Tech students finish up tragic semester By: Rosemary Lane Posted: 5/3/07 Wednesday was the last day of classes for Virginia Tech students, and students said taking exams is tough while coping with the tragedy. Charlotte Savercool, a freshman at Virginia Tech, said all the hallways of her dorm are almost empty, as most students did not take exams. "The teachers have been really supportive," Savercool said. "They let us choose if we want to keep our same grade or finish certain assignments." She said the teachers won't grade anything that hurts your average. Laura Gill, a senior, said most teachers have assigned group projects so all the work doesn't fall on one student. "None of us can imagine sitting down and studying for an exam," Gill said. "It's too much for anybody." Gill said walking into the classroom on the first day back on April 23 after the shooting was the hardest part. She said she kept thinking about the shooting - about how the victims thought it would be a normal day. "Once I was in class, I'd relax a bit, but changing buildings was really rough for me," Gill said. "My heart would start racing, and then I would calm down and realize it wouldn't happen again." Junior Chris Barrett said classes were the most full on the first day back except for exam days in previous years. He said teachers talked about what happened in each class. Savercool said teachers would let students voice their opinions but she has gotten tired of talking about the tragedy. "After the second and third classes, I didn't want to talk about it anymore," Savercool said. She said the shooting has been hard to deal with, and she cannot bring herself to watch the video the shooter left behind. Savercool said she realized the shooting's impact when she looked on the Internet and heard from other students it was the largest school shooting ever. "The best way for me to deal with it is to see the memorials and not watch the news," Savercool said. Gill said the reality of what happened hit her when she went home after the shooting. "It was really hard to come back into (class)," Gill said. "The memories came rushing back. We're in a bubble here and no one understands until they come here." Gill said it's better when she's with people and hardest when she's alone. She said she and her friends have been having nightmares about the shooter. "I see images of him holding the guns, and I watched the video, which I think was a really stupid idea," she said. Everyone is trying to get back to normal, Gill said, but no one can get it off their minds. Barrett said the campus seems more empty since the media left. "For a while it seemed like people were pretty sad, but they seem to be doing OK," Barrett said. "A lot of people are finally getting out of here." Gill said the campus looks like one big memorial, and the university received a lot of support from other colleges. She said orange and maroon ribbons and signs reading, "We will prevail" hang all over the place. Savercool said the Hershey Company made free orange and maroon Kissables candies for students. "It's stuff like that," Savercool said. "The support is so much more comforting. It's negative when we still talk about the killer." Savercool said before the shooting she didn't think she'd be sad to leave, but now she doesn't want to go home to Maryland for the summer. She said students at Virginia Tech have bonded and are in the same boat. "My friends at home won't understand when I get sad one day," Savercool said. "They'll never understand and they never will." Gill said the community has grown a lot closer. She said the campus has always been happy, but people are now even more friendly. "Everyone here is your friend," Gill said. "Down at the bars, we're making so many more friends because everyone is closer." Gill said she's staying at school this summer and thinks it will be interesting to see how the university cleans up campus while paying respect to the tragedy. She said Norris Hall, where the shootings occurred, will remain closed for the time being. The building's future is being debated. Barrett said he's also staying for the summer. "I love it here," Barrett said. "I'm taking classes all summer here so I'm not ever leaving." -- Original Source:Marquette Tribune - May 3, 2007
"Sheaffer, Amanda" <amanda.sheaffer@marquette.edu>
Photo taken April 21, 2007 by Ross Catrow. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic. Original Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/maxpower/468742281/
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Latest news: Investigators, loved ones try to reconcile the 2 sides of NIU gunman
Photo: ALAN LEON | RRSTAR.COM Ken Shold, an NIU almunus and father of a current student, sheds tears while praying in front of Cole Hall on Saturday, Feb. 16, 2008, on the Northern Illinois University campus in DeKalb. Story: Feb 16, 2008 @ 09:40 PM RRSTAR.COM, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, GATEHOUSE NEWS SERVICE AND ESPN.COM DEKALB - A look at those who died in the shootings Visit the NIU February 14 Student Scholarship Fund For more coverage, read our special report Steven Kazmierczak had the look of a boyish graduate student — except for the disturbing tattoos that covered his arms. 9:40 p.m. NIU plans scholarship fund in honor of victims Authorities at NIU said they were creating a scholarship fund in honor of the slain students and also are discussing how to build a permanent on-campus memorial. 8:18 p.m. Virginia Tech plans virgil for NIU shooting victims Virginia Tech plans to have a candlelight vigil on Monday to show support for those affected by the shootings at Northern Illinois University. Hokies United, the student group that formed after the April shootings at Virginia Tech that left 33 dead, organized the vigil and has asked the university community to wear NIU's school colors of red and black as a sign of support and solidarity on Monday. Hokies United will also temporarily lay a red and black Hokie Stone near the campus memorial dedicated to those who lost their lives in the April 16 shootings. Students plan to deliver the stone to Northern Illinois, in DeKalb, Ill., in a week or so. On Thursday, a 27-year-old former NIU student opened fire on a geology class, killing five people before committing suicide. The shooting brought back horrific memories for the Virginia Tech community, still reeling from its own tragedy. Many people on campus donned red and black on Friday in a show of support. The latest shooting also left some families of the Virginia Tech victims feeling anguished. "It just brings it all back. I can't imagine what they're going through, but I know what they're going through," said Suzanne Grimes, whose son Kevin Sterne was injured in the Tech shootings and appeared in a now-famous photograph being carried by rescue workers with a tourniquet around his leg. "I feel their pain, and I feel their loss." Sterne, who returned to Blacksburg to pursue a master's degree, is deeply upset by the latest shootings, and is concerned about entering a classroom, said Grimes, of Eighty Four, Pa. He hopes to reach out to the victims' families and the survivors of the Illinois shooting, she said. Virginia Tech president Charles Steger also expressed sympathy for the NIU community. "This horrific news will certainly bring to mind the hurt, pain, and trauma we experienced less than a year ago," Steger wrote in a message posted on the university's web site. "I have sent my condolences and offer of assistance to the president of NIU. Our university community was bolstered and comforted by the outpouring of support from campuses around the nation and the world," Steger said. "I am sure that expressions of support from the Virginia Tech community will mean much to that now suffering campus community." 6:15 p.m. Students agree closing Cole Hall right move The decision to close Cole Hall, the scene of Thursday's shootings that left six dead, was the right one, said Lee Blank, an NIU student working toward a postgraduate journalism degree. "It would just be wrong ethically, I think, to have to open that building up again and go to class there," he said. The school has asked faculty members to return to campus Tuesday and classes will resume Feb. 25. Teachers and staff will receive extensive training on how to help students cope with returning to class. Student associations are putting a series of activities and events together to keep students busy during the days ahead. All university events, including athletic competitions, remain canceled through Feb. 24. "The last thing on people's minds right now is going back to class," said NIU junior Michelle Rzepka, who said she'd spend Monday attending the funeral of fellow classmate Daniel Parmenter. NIU will increase police presence when classes resume. The school's 45 to 50 sworn officers will be bolstered by private security guards, and police officers from DeKalb and surrounding counties will be added, NIU spokeswoman Melanie Magara said. An extra week will be added to the school year. The May 10 graduation commencement has been rescheduled to May 17. Officials have made no decision about how to handle questions about academic grades or refunds for students who do not return to school immediately or at all. Magara offered no new details about the ongoing investigation into the shooting. Authorities intend to interview the 160 or so people who were in the Cole Hall auditorium where the shooting took place, but those interviews aren't yet finished, she said. She read a written statement from NIU President John Peters, who urged students, faculty and residents to "take care of ourselves and take care of each other" as the community copes in the days and weeks ahead. "Let us continue to show the world that an act of violence does not define us," Peters said. 5:04 p.m. Classes at NIU to resume Feb. 25 Classes at Northern Illinois University will be postponed for another week, with students scheduled to return Feb. 25, the university announced this afternoon. Faculty and staff will return Tuesday, according to Melanie Margara, assistant vice president of public affairs. Margara said the weeklong delay will mean a week will be added to the end of the semester. She said this week will be used to train staff on how to work with students in the aftermath of the shooting and give the university staff and students time to recover from the event. "In the end, the decision ... ultimately gave us a little more breathing time," she said. Margara said Cole Hall, the building where the shooting took place, will be closed for the rest of the academic year. Beyond that, its future is unknown. 4:57 p.m. Seven victims of NIU shooting remain hospitalized Seven people remain hospitalized after the shooting at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb. Three of the patients are listed in serious condition -- including one who was upgraded from critical. The other four patients are listed in fair condition. They are at hospitals in DeKalb, Rockford, Downers Grove and Chicago. A 27-year-old graduate student from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign killed five people in a NIU lecture hall Thursday before killing himself. 3:35 p.m. Mother of victim retains her faith in goodness After learning of the death of her son, it would have been easy for Linda Greer to withdraw into her grief and shun the rest of the world. But the Elmhurst resident publicly reaffirmed her faith in God and her hope for humanity, even while family and friends struggled to cope with the tragedy that took her son's life. Dan Parmenter, a 20-year-old sophomore at Northern Illinois University, died Thursday after a former NIU student shot and killed five people in a classroom before taking his own life. Shortly after a vigil held Friday evening, Greer shared her thoughts about her son with members of the media. "He was always special," Greer said. "From the time he was a little boy, he was fearless, and he was inquisitive and he loved people. And the character traits just continued to grow as he did." Greer said her son grew up in Elmhurst and became an integral part of the community. And though she wasn't pleased that Parmenter joined a fraternity when he went away to NIU, he used the occasion to do some good by organizing bingo nights with his frat brothers at a nursing home, Greer said. Greer expressed her hope that the goodness in people like her son will triumph over the evil that took his life. "I just want people to know that Dan is gone. It was evil that his life was taken," Greer said. "There is no way to make sense of it. But because I know that so many people are praying for us and are holding us up, there is hope for the future. Evil is not going to overcome good in this world as long as there are people of God and people are praying." The Friday vigil was held at Elmhurst Presbyterian Church, just southeast of York Community High School. Parmenter graduated from York in 2006. 3:29 p.m. NIU response helped by Virginia Tech lessons Northern Illinois University's response to Thursday's shooting rampage may have been helped by what state officials learned from last year's massacre at Virginia Tech University. A Campus Safety Task Force was created to see what could be learned from the Virginia Tech incident and how those lessons could be implemented here. Representatives from state colleges and universities, including NIU, attended task force meetings. One of the most important lessons discussed was getting information to students as quickly as possible. "The response at Northern Illinois, from our standpoint, was extraordinary," said Mike Chamness, chairman of the Illinois Terrorism Task Force. Students were notified within 20 minutes that a shooting occurred, to take cover and stay away from some parts of the campus, Chamness said. At Virginia Tech, it took more than two hours to issue an alert. Students at NIU also were relaying text messages to each other. One idea discussed by the task force was that colleges should use multiple means to convey an emergency message to students, including encouraging the use of text messaging. Rep. Rich Myers, R-Colchester, said Western Illinois University in his district just went through a drill to notify students in case of emergency. "They sent text messages to cell phones, voice mail, e-mail," Myers said. "As I understand it, it was a very successful test." What to do after an emergency is only part of the task force's responsibility. It is also examining prevention. A full report is scheduled to be delivered April 1. "A mental health survey is still being completed," Chamness said. "That purpose is to look at ways to identify potential issues and how to deal with those, how to get help to those people." That will probably require the assistance of students themselves. "Be alert. If you see something that looks suspicious, don't be shy or embarrassed about picking up the phone and calling law enforcement authorities," Chamness advised. "You may be the person who helps prevent something." At the same time, Chamness said there didn't seem to be the "red flags" in the NIU case that there were at Virginia Tech. "I don't think there's a panacea out there for how you stop this," he said. "You're talking about somebody who walked into a classroom." Chamness said state officials will meet with NIU staff in coming weeks to assess what happened and what parts of the response plan worked and if any didn't. Rep. Dan Brady, R-Bloomington, said he wants two House committees — Higher Education and Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness — to convene a joint session in a few weeks to review the NIU situation. "I want to have a joint hearing once reports are released and more information can be obtained as to how we can be better informed and better prepared," said Brady whose district includes Illinois State University. "Even though it looks like everyone worked in synch, there's always something to learn." 3:18 p.m. Godfather of NIU shooter: Reunion planned for today Richard Grafer was supposed to have breakfast with his godson Saturday. Instead, Grafer is mourning him. Grafer, godfather to NIU gunman Steven Kazmierczak, said he lost touch with his godson about 15 years ago, when the boy was 12. He wouldn't say why. it changed about four weeks ago, when Kazmierczak called Grafer at about 10:30 p.m. to reconnect. "He says, 'Hi, Uncle Rich.' I said 'Who is this?'" Grafer said in a phone interview this morning. "He told me it was Stephen." The conversation led to an apology from Grafer for not showing up when Kazmierczak's mother, Gail, died in September 2006. They talked about fishing together, which they'd done in the past, Grafer said. "We had a lot of fun together," he said. "He was a good kid." Grafer said he thought Kazmierczak had a girlfriend, though he did not know her name. He also said he was unaware of what kind of medication Kazmierczak had been taking before he stopped, which made him "erratic" over the past several weeks, authorities have said, before he shot and killed five NIU students and himself Thursday at Cole Hall. Grafer and Kazmierczak, 27, would have reunited today. "This is hard for me. He was supposed to stay at my house today," Grafer said. "He said he wanted to get back in touch and do things." 2:24 p.m. Blackhawks to honor victims of NIU tragedy The Chicago Blackhawks announced today that they will pay their respects to the six lives that were lost in the tragic shooting on the campus of nearby Northern Illinois University by wearing a Huskies decal on the back of their helmets for the game Sunday against the Colorado Avalanche. The decal will be a replica of the overlay of a black ribbon and Northern Illinois Huskies logo that appears on the university's official Web site. The team will also observe a moment of silence before the anthem for Sunday's game to allow fans to pay their respects to six bright young lives that were senselessly taken from us. The team will wear the decals for their road game against St. Louis on Tuesday and again at home against Minnesota on Wednesday. 1 p.m. NIU athletic department implemented crisis plan after Va. Tech shootings After the Virginia Tech shootings in April, the Northern Illinois athletic department upgraded its emergency crisis plan, just in case. "You hope you never have to use it," athletic director Jim Phillips said. Tragically, the plan was put into action Thursday afternoon after a 27-year-old man walked into Cole Hall and opened fire at 3:07 p.m., killing five students before taking his own life at the school's DeKalb., Ill., campus. No student-athletes were among the dead or wounded. Drew Jeskey, a midfielder on the Huskies soccer team, was in the lecture hall during the shooting but escaped. Tim Mayerbock, an offensive guard on the school's football team, was just outside Cole Hall at the time of the shooting and helped a wounded student. "The student got hit with some pellets off of one of the shotgun shells, was not in critical condition but was certainly injured," Phillips told ESPN.com on Friday night. "Tim and his friend helped the kid to safety and also took him to the hospital. He really jumped in at a horrific moment." The tragedy hit especially close for Phillips, who received a message from his wife late Thursday night that their niece was in the lecture hall but didn't attend because she was sick. "Our hearts are broken, and our thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their families," Phillips said. "But we will not be deterred. We're going to get stronger from this event." Phillips was in a meeting at the athletic department offices Thursday afternoon when university president John Peters called to inform him of the shooting. Department staff members immediately contacted the school's 17 varsity head coaches, who started the process of accounting for all of their athletes. Phillips went to inform the women's basketball team, which was practicing at the Convocation Center when the shootings occurred. He also had NIU's academic advisor check if any athletes were attending the geology class. They found out several hours after the shooting that Jeskey was safe. "I'm very proud of our staff and our coaches," Phillips said. "We were able to get a hold of all of our kids through text messaging, e-mails, phone calls, voicemails, cell phones, on-campus phones. I pray that we never have to go through this horrific tragedy ever again." After an emergency meeting with the school's administration, Phillips cancelled all athletic activities scheduled for the weekend. Athletes were given the option to go home, and counselors were provided for those who remained on campus. No decision has been made on when athletic events will resume. Teams likely will make tributes to the shooting victims. "It's still a little bit premature," Phillips said. "We're certainly going to do something. To what extent, we haven't made any final decisions." Phillips spent much of Thursday night with Peters and other school officials at Kishwaukee Community Hospital, where 18 gunshot victims were transported. Around 10:30 p.m., he spoke with Virginia Tech athletic director Jim Weaver. "He was absolutely wonderful," Phillips said. "I just tried to seek his guidance and counsel to make sure we were making the proper decisions. He felt like we were doing a very good job. That was reaffirming." 12:22 p.m. Media at NIU 'just doing their jobs' Camera lenses from around the world focused on DeKalb this week, dwarfing this university town of about 40,000 residents with their presence. Hundreds of reporters swarmed the campus after it played an unlikely home to the country's third deadliest college shooting in history when Stephen Kazmierczak shot and killed five of his classmates and turned the gun on himself on the stage of Cole Hall. By early Friday morning, a Fox News helicopter buzzed above King Commons, drowning the whispers of several students praying below. The news crews stuck around Friday, perching their satellites and umbrella reflectors outside Altgeld Hall before filling the auditorium. Reporters inside donned badges from outlets as far away as they Los Angeles Times, TIME magazine and Spanish-language network Telemundo. Waiting for debriefings, they slugged down coffee and swapped memories of other national tragedies they've covered. Afterward, they staked out every cranny of the campus; antennae peeped from behind rows of stone buildings. The scene was decidedly quieter Saturday morning. Altgeld Hall, which served as a kind of hostel for media, sat empty. But growling TV trucks sat stationed at hotels around DeKalb, waiting to make their next move. "I think it's good," resident David Castro said of the extra attention the community is receiving, though he never expected it. "They're just doing their jobs." Castro works at Black Stone Restaurant on Lincoln Highway, where patrons on Friday seemed equally fixated by media accounts of the massacre. At breakfast, they're eyes were glued to televisions where scrolling headlines pumped details of the violence. "You really don't think it's here, in your home town," resident Jim Smith said. "It feels like it's happening somewhere else." 11:18 a.m. NIU students search for distractions Dennis Hadley walked out of a candlelight vigil in the Holmes Student Center with tear-stained eyes. But by Sunday, the DeKalb native will be through with crying. He is packing up his wife Susan and daughter Bethany and driving to the Chicago Auto Show. "It's a distraction," said Hadley, a 44-year-old graduate student enrolled in NIU's accounting program. "For a few hours, I'll fantasize about this new car or that new car." Hadley's Huskie roots run deep. His father worked at the university as a janitor and security guard. His uncle worked there as an equipment manager. His wife is a graduate, and his daughter is a senior who plans to graduate alongside her father in May. "You never think a tragedy like this will happen in your hometown," Hadley said. "This is the stuff that happens on TV. It happens somewhere else. It's not supposed to happen in a rural community like this, but it has. We're not safe out here anymore, out here in our corn." Talking about the tragedy is helping Hadley cope. He spent Friday and Saturday e-mailing and phoning students and colleagues he works alongside. They swapped stories about where they were when the campus was locked down and the minutes and hours that followed the shooting rampage Thursday. Hadley was in an accounting class with 30 other students at Barsema Hall, a block and a half northeast of Cole Hall where the shooting occurred. "Everyone's cell phones started going off and we knew something was wrong," he said. "But then we tried calling people and none of our phones worked because the lines were overloaded. We we're stuck inside the building until sometime after 4 p.m. I wasn't able to talk to my wife until about 4:45 p.m. I didn't talk to my daughter until 7:30 p.m. that night. Everyone I knew was fine. Shaken, but fine." Hadley said he's been crying a lot. His daughter Bethany, an NIU gymnast working toward an education degree, didn't want to go with her dad to the vigil today. "She wanted to sleep instead," her father said. "I know time will heal the wounds, I just don't know how much time." 10:24 a.m.: Police seize computer from hotel where gunman stayed Steven Kazmierczak checked into a hotel near campus three days before carrying out his deadly shooting spree at Northern Illinois University, paying cash and signing his name only as "Steven" on a slip of paper, according to the hotel manager. Kazmierczak last was seen at the Travelodge, where he smoked cigarettes and downed energy drinks and cold medicine, on Tuesday, hotel manager Jay Patel said. A newspaper report said that authorities found a duffel bag that Kazmierczak had left in the room, the zippers glued shut. A bomb squad was called, but investigators found ammunition inside the bag, the newspaper reported, citing law-enforcement sources. Kazmierczak also left behind a laptop computer, which was seized by investigators, Patel told The Associated Press today. "It's scary," said Patel, adding that he called police when he found the laptop and clothes, but "nobody's in the room." The discoveries added to the puzzles surrounding Kazmierczak, a 27-year-old graduate student some called quiet, dependable and fun-loving who returned to his alma mater on Valentine's Day, leaving five people dead before turning a gun on himself. A former employee at a Chicago psychiatric treatment center said Kazmierczak was placed there after high school by his parents. She said he used to cut himself, and had resisted taking his medications. He also had a short-lived stint as a prison guard that ended abruptly when he didn't show up for work. He was in the Army for about six months in 2001-02, but he told a friend he'd gotten a psychological discharge. Exactly what set Kazmierczak off, and why he picked his former university and that particular lecture hall, remained a mystery. On Thursday, Kazmierczak, armed with three handguns and a pump-action shotgun, stepped from behind a screen on the lecture hall's stage and opened fire on a geology class. He killed five students before committing suicide. University Police Chief Donald Grady said Friday that Kazmierczak had become erratic in the past two weeks after he stopped taking his medication. Kazmierczak spent more than a year at the Thresholds-Mary Hill House in the late 1990s, former house manager Louise Gbadamashi told The Associated Press. His parents placed him there after high school because he had become "unruly" at home, she said. Gbadamashi said she couldn't remember any instances of him being violent. "He never wanted to identify with being mentally ill," she said. "That was part of the problem." The attack was baffling to many of those who knew him. "Steve was the most gentle, quiet guy in the world. ... He had a passion for helping people," said Jim Thomas, an emeritus professor of sociology and criminology at Northern Illinois who taught Kazmierczak, promoted him to a teacher's aide and became his friend. Kazmierczak once told Thomas about getting a discharge from the Army. "It was no major deal, a kind of incompatibility discharge — for a state of mind, not for any behavior," Thomas said. "He was concerned that that on his record might be a stigma." Kazmierczak enlisted in September 2001, but was discharged in February 2002 for an "unspecified" reason, Army spokesman Paul Boyce said. He worked from Sept. 24 to Oct. 9 as a corrections officer at the Rockville Correctional Facility, a medium-security prison in Rockville, Ind. His tenure there ended when "he just didn't show up one day," Indiana prisons spokesman Doug Garrison said. 9:16 a.m.: NIU still unsure when classes will resume NIU administrators are "still pondering" when the campus will open and classes will restart, Pat Erickson, a university spokeswoman, said this morning. Erickson said administrators are meeting sometime this morning to discuss how to proceed. She was unaware of any plans for the future of Cole Hall, where Stephen Kazmierczak shot and killed five students and himself Thursday. Classes and events at NIU since have been canceled. "(Administrators) are taking in all the information as they're getting it," said Erickson, who did not know when more information about NIU's future would be made public. She is steering people to NIU's Web site, www.niu.edu, for more information. She said any new information would be posted as a "status update." 7:12 a.m.: NIU campus quieter; memorials draw attention The NIU campus is decidedly quieter this morning, as TV satellites and a flurry of reporters who stormed the campus Friday have appeared to disperse. Only a few photographers are lingering, milling about the makeshift memorials that have sprung up around campus. Students, who gathered last night for several candlelight vigils also have retreated. But their memorials continue to grow. At Lucinda Street and Normal Road, a memorial with candles and posters offering prayers and messages of support remains. And near the Holmes Student Center, students have placed a sign that reads "We Are NIU," where hundreds have signed their names and light candles. 6:20 a.m.: Tips offer help for grieving NIU students Northern Illinois University officials have issued a tip sheet for grieving students who are struggling to understand how a shooting rampage could take place on the university campus. The paper from the Counseling and Student Development Center and the American Psychological Association says it's typical for people to experience a variety of emotions after the tragic massacre. "You may find that you have trouble sleeping, concentrating, eating, or remembering even simple tasks," the paper states. "This is common and should pass after awhile. Over time the caring support of family and friends can help to lessen the emotional impact and ultimately make the changes brought by the tragedy more manageable." Tips include: Talk about it: Ask for support from people around you. They'll listen to your concerns and your feelings. They will comfort you. Counseling services are available through the NIU Counseling and Student Development Center. It can be reached at 815-753-1206. The center is in the Campus Life Building at the corner of Lucinda and Normal. Strive for balance: Balance pessimistic or negative outlooks or thoughts by reminding yourself of the people and events that are meaningful and comforting. Turn it off: Take a break from the news. Overexposing yourself to news of the tragedy can increase stress. Instead, focus on something you enjoy for awhile. Take care of yourself: Engage in healthy behaviors that help you cope. Exercise and eat healthy meals. Avoid alcohol or drugs because they might intensify emotional or physical pain. 6:06 a.m.: Cleanup crews leave; news crews remain at NIU Crews from Aftermath Inc., a company that specializes in cleaning after homicides, self-inflicted gunshot wounds and unintended deaths worked through the night at Cole Hall on the Northern Illinois University campus. The crews, dressed in plain clothes, appeared to complete their work just before 5 a.m., loading black garbage bags of materials into three utility vans before driving away. Cole Hall remains cordoned off behind yellow police tape. Meanwhile, media crews already are set up just beyond the police tape, preparing for another day of coverage of the tragedy. News vans that had parked just before 5 a.m. on the sidewalk outside of Kings Commons in view of Cole Hall, the scene of a bloody rampage Thursday, were told to relocate by police officers. 5:11 a.m.: Chambers of commerce set up NIU memorial fund The DeKalb and Sycamore chambers of commerce have established an NIU memorial fund through the DeKalb County Community Foundation. Donations may be sent to DCCF, 2600 DeKalb Ave., Sycamore, IL 60178. For information, call the DeKalb Chamber of Commerce, 815-756-6306. Donate online through PayPal on the National Bank & Trust Co. Web site. 5:02 a.m.: Private company begins Cole Hall cleanup A private company has begun cleaning up Cole Hall after Thursday's bloody rampage. Three utility vans with Aftermath Inc. painted on their side were spotted just before 5 a.m., parked outside the building on the NIU campus. Several men, some dressed in shorts and T-shirts, were seen carrying trash bags from the crime scene and placing them into the vans. According to its Web site, the Oswego-based company specializes in "crime scene and tragedy cleanup." 3:55 a.m.: Friends of NIU victim pay respects It's quiet on the Northern Illinois University campus where memorial candles still burn despite the severe cold and frigid breeze. Hours earlier, standing before one of several makeshift memorials scattered throughout the campus, Sarah Hilby and Ashley Leach embraced. They left three roses and candles in memory of those killed this week in a mass shooting. "We wanted to pay our respects at least in this way," said Leach, 20, an NIU sophomore. Both were friends with Daniel Parmenter, one of five NIU students killed Thursday afternoon by Stephen Kazmierczak, an NIU alumnus. "We knew (Parmenter) from freshman year," Leach said. "He was around our room a lot at Lincoln Hall." Dennis O'Brien, an auto mechanic in Oswego, said he came along to pay his respects. "It's just tough," O'Brien said. "It's an upsetting thing and to just pass it by, people don't pay attention, people don't care. Columbine is so far away you don't think it affects you. But this is so close it's a lot more upsetting." 2:12 a.m.: 'I wanted to be around people who could understand' Northern Illinois University alumnus Andrew Crow relit memorial candles, straightened others that had fallen over and tended the makeshift memorial on a hill bordering the Kings Commons shortly after midnight. From there, Cole Hall — where five students were shot to death and up to 18 others wounded before the gunman killed himself a day earlier — can be seen about 150 yards away. An electrical engineer who graduated in December 2005 from NIU, Crow said he needed this. Tending the memorial is his way of paying respect to the dead and wounded. "This is more for myself," Crow said. "I needed people who know what I was feeling. I wanted to be around people who could understand." In the wee, frigid hours of Saturday morning, dozens of folks are still walking from memorial to memorial, looking for solace. Looking for solidarity. And looking to come to grips with what, until Valentine's Day, had been unimaginable. Crosses taller than a man stand vigil at the corner of Lucinda and Normal just outside the Lutheran Campus Ministries. There, NIU student Amber Larson, 21, of Stillman Valley paused with friends to write a message. Larson said the vigils on campus have given her some measure of comfort as grief has replaced yesterday's shocked disbelief of the massacre. "The vigil was good," Larson said. "It was nice to have a sense of community and know people are there for us." 1:55 a.m.: Mourners pay respects for victims of 'selfish act' Northern Illinois University is a campus in stunned grief. Outside the Lutheran Campus Ministries stand six crosses about 6 feet tall symbolizing the six who were left dead after a vicious attack on a Geology 104 class in Cole Hall on Thursday. Across the street at the corner of Normal and Lucinda, dozens of candles and posters have been left by mourners on a snowbank. Bridget Buehler, 19, of DeKalb, a sophomore NIU student, left candles at the makeshift memorials, paying her respects to the dead. "Everyone is trying to band together," Buehler said. "I think everyone still thinks it's somewhat surreal. Growing up here has made it difficult to deal with. You never think something like this will happen in your town. I never felt unsafe here or worried about anything. I had a class in that room." Where once virtually all felt safe on this campus that's still surrounded by cornfields despite significant commercial growth over the past decade, that cloak of security has been ripped away. Dave Kupcinet of Chicago came here to pay his respects along with girlfriend Chrissy Clark, a student from Pacific College in Chicago. They came looking for answers. How could someone do something like this? But Kupcinet said perhaps he knew all along there would be no answers. "Parents feel their kids are in college, in a classroom or a dorm room and they are safe," Kupcinet said. "No place is safe anywhere. It's an unbelievable tragedy that something like this could happen. What a selfish act. It's hard to accept. I can't imagine your college carreer being broken apart by something like this. Why did it happen? Who knows." 1:22 a.m.: NIU gunman's deadly rampage baffles many who knew him If there is such a thing as a profile of a mass murderer, Steven Kazmierczak didn't fit it: outstanding student, engaging, polite and industrious, with what looked like a bright future in the criminal justice field. And yet on Thursday, the 27-year-old Kazmierczak, armed with three handguns and a brand-new pump-action shotgun he had carried onto campus in a guitar case, stepped from behind a screen on the stage of a lecture hall at Northern Illinois University and opened fire on a geology class. He killed five students before committing suicide. University Police Chief Donald Grady said, without giving details, that Kazmierczak had become erratic in the past two weeks after he had stopped taking his medication. But that seemed to come as news to many of those who knew him, and the attack itself was positively baffling. "We had no indications at all this would be the type of person that would engage in such activity," Grady said. He described the gunman as a good student during his time at NIU, and by all accounts a "fairly normal" person. But other details of his life emerged on Friday, including short-lived stints as a prison guard and service in the military. Kazmierczak enlisted in the Army in September 2001, but was discharged in February 2002 for an "unspecified" reason, Army spokesman Paul Boyce said. Late Friday, a former employee at a Chicago psychiatric treatment center told The Associated Press Kazmierczak was placed there after high school by his parents. She said he used to cut himself, and resisted taking his medications. And he worked briefly as a full-time correction officer at the Rockville Correctional Facility, an adult medium-security prison in Rockville, Ind., about 80 miles from Champaign. His tenure there lasted only from Sept. 24 to Oct. 9, 2007, after which Indiana prisons spokesman Doug Garrison said "he just didn't show up one day." He said he didn't know if Kazmierczak had tried to get his job back. Exactly what set Kazmierczak off — and why he picked his former university and that particular lecture hall — remained a mystery. Police said they found no suicide note. Authorities were searching for a woman who police believe may have been Kazmierczak's girlfriend. According to a law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the case is still under investigation, authorities were looking into whether Kazmierczak and the woman recently broke up. In Chicago, FBI spokesman Ross Rice said, "I know that we're looking for a roommate, but I don't know whether it is a girlfriend or not." Investigators learned that a week ago, on Feb. 9, Kazmierczak walked into a Champaign gun store and picked up two guns — the Remington shotgun and a Glock 9mm handgun. He bought the two other handguns at the same shop — a Hi-Point .380 on Dec. 30 and a Sig Sauer on Aug. 6. All four guns were bought legally from a federally licensed firearms dealer, said Thomas Ahern, a spokesman for the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. At least one criminal background check was performed. Kazmierczak (pronounced kaz-MUR-chek) had no criminal record. Kazmierczak had a State Police-issued FOID, or firearms owners identification card, which is required in Illinois to own a gun, authorities said. Such cards are rarely issued to those with recent mental health problems. The application asks: "In the past five years have you been a patient in any medical facility or part of any medical facility used primarily for the care or treatment of persons for mental illness?" Kazmierczak, who went by Steve, graduated from NIU in 2007 and was a graduate student in sociology there before leaving last year and moving on to the graduate school of social work at the University of Illinois in Champaign, 130 miles away. Unlike Virginia Tech gunman Seung-Hui Cho — a sullen misfit who could barely look anyone in the eye, much less carry on a conversation — Kazmierczak appeared to fit in just fine. Chris Larrison, an assistant professor of social work, said Kazmierczak did data entry for Larrison's research grant on mental health clinics. Larrison was stunned by the shooting rampage, as was the gunman's faculty adviser, professor Jan Carter-Black. "He was engaging, motivated, responsible. I saw nothing to suggest that there was anything troubling about his behavior," she said. Carter-Black said Kazmierczak wanted to focus on mental health issues and enrolled in August in a course she taught about human behavior and the social environment, but withdrew in September because he had gotten a job with the prison system. He resumed classes full-time in January, Carter-Black said. His University of Illinois student ID depicts a smiling, clean-cut Kazmierczak, unlike the scowling, menacing-looking images of Cho that surfaced after his rampage. NIU President John Peters said Kazmierczak compiled "a very good academic record, no record of trouble" at the 25,000-student campus in DeKalb. He won at least two awards and served as an officer in two student groups dedicated to promoting understanding of the criminal justice system. Exactly what sort of career he planned for himself was unclear. But he wrote papers on self-injury in prison and the role of religion in the creation of early U.S. prisons. The research paper on self-injury in prison said his interests also included political violence and peace and social justice. Speaking Friday in Lakeland, Fla., Kazmierczak's distraught father did not immediately provide any clues to what led to the bloodshed. "Please leave me alone. ... This is a very hard time for me," Robert Kazmierczak told reporters, throwing his arms up and weeping after emerging briefly from his house. He declined further comment about his son and went back inside his house, saying he was diabetic. A sign on the front door said: "Illini fans live here." A statement posted on the door on the Urbana home of Kazmierczak's sister said "We are both shocked and saddened. In addition to the loss of innocent lives, Steven was a member of our family. We are grieving his loss as well as the loss of life resulting from his actions." Neighbors in the brick apartment building in Champaign where Kazmierczak last lived were shocked to hear he was the gunman. "It's not possible," said Maurice Darling, 80, who lives in an adjacent second-floor apartment. "He seemed to be much too nice." He said the tall, thin and bespectacled Kazmierczak shared the apartment with a woman and neither showed any sign of anger or aggression. "They were friendly, agreeable — just like any neighbor would be," he said. Chelsea Thrash, a 25-year-old waitress who lives with her 3-year-old daughter in the apartment directly beneath Kazmierczak's, said he was always up late and there was frequently a lot of "trampling" noise coming through the hardwood floor. She went up and knocked on the door once recently at 1 a.m. or 2 a.m. to request quiet and he said through the closed door, "Oh, I'm sorry — I dropped my weight." "It's kind of creepy," she said. "I never thought someone in this tiny corner of southwest Champaign would ever dream of that, let alone carry it out, and have that above me and my daughter." Kazmierczak grew up in the Chicago suburb of Elk Grove Village, not far from O'Hare International Airport. His family lived most recently in a middle-class neighborhood of mostly one-story tract homes before moving away early in this decade. His mother died in Florida in 2006 at age 58. He was a B student at Elk Grove High School, where school district spokeswoman Venetia Miles said he was active in band and took Japanese before graduating in 1998. He was also in the chess club. Kazmierczak spent more than a year at the Thresholds-Mary Hill House in the late 1990s, former house manager Louise Gbadamashi told the AP. She said his parents placed him after high school because he had become "unruly" at home. She also said he used to cut himself for attention. She said he often resisted taking his medications, though he eventually became "compliant." Gbadamashi said she couldn't remember any instances of Kazmierczak being violent. At NIU, six white crosses were placed on a snow-covered hill around the center of campus, which was closed Friday. They included the names of four victims — Daniel Parmenter, Ryanne Mace, Julianna Gehant, Catalina Garcia. The two other crosses were blank, though officials have identified Kazmierczak's final victim as Gayle Dubowski. By Friday night, dozens of candles flickered in packed snow at makeshift memorials around campus as hundreds of students, mostly wearing NIU red and black, formed a standing-room-only crowd at an evening memorial service. "It's kind of overwhelming. It feels strong, it feels like we're all in this together," said Carlee Siggeman, 18, a freshman from Genoa who attended the vigil with a group of friends. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Generic -- Original Source: http://www.rrstar.com/niu/x1529756411
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This is a clip on the Virginia Tech shooting from April 18, 2006. It ran on 'Morning Ireland' show on the Irish radio station RTE 1. It featured an interview between myself and Irish journalist Robert Shortt on the drillfield which took place just as the candlelight vigil was starting.
by Ruben Maqueda Like every other American, I was shocked and horrified by the shootings that took place at Virginia Tech. I thought of the students and so many young, promising lives suddenly cut short. I thought of the professors who sacrificed their lives for their students, and whose vast knowledge was now lost to the world. I thought of the survivors and the scars, physical and emotional, that they would bear after experiencing such brutality. I thought of the friends and families of the victims. Having lost my own mother eight months earlier, I knew the painful road that lay before them and how this one day would change them forever. This shrine is a tribute to the victims, 27 students and 5 professors, who lost their lives on April 16, 2007. In the Mexican culture, Day of the Dead is a very important holiday. It is believed that on the night of November 1, the spirits of the dead return to earth to visit their loved ones. Families go to the cemeteries on that day to honor their dead by scrubbing headstones, cleaning the graves, and decorating the gravesite with candles, flowers, photos, sugar skulls and offerings of food and drink. I wanted to incorporate some traditional Day of the Dead elements, while adding elements of college life and some unique touches of my own. I was very touched when I learned that the university was posthumously awarding degrees to all of the students killed in the shootings. What you see here is, in effect, a graduation ceremony. Sugar skulls bearing the name of the deceased are a very traditional element of the Day of the Dead. The skulls, decorated with brightly colored frosting, foil, and other items, are placed on the shrine. There are 32 papier-mache skulls adorning the shrine, with the larger skulls honoring the professors. Each skull bears the name of one of the victims, and each skull wears a graduation cap with the Virginia Tech logo over the tassel. In addition to a skull, there is a candle for each victim. The box above the professors houses an image of George Washington. I thought that since this is their first Day of the Dead, the spirits of the victims might need a guide to show them the way back. Since George Washington has been dead for over 200 years, I thought he would be familiar with the process and would make a fitting guide for them because of his strong association with Virginia. The background of the shrine has the twelve constellations of the zodiac painted on it to represent not only the birthdays of the victims, but the passage of time as well. There are books, labeled with the subjects taught by the professors, which represent their lives, their knowledge, their education, and their status as educators. On the sides of the shrine are 598 origami cranes. If the ages of the students are added up, it totals 598, so each crane represents a year of life. Working on this shrine was a labor of love for me. I made the skulls out of cardboard boxes, and I discovered that the strongest and best cardboard came from the core. If you look at a cross-section of a piece of cardboard, the core is corrugated and that is what gives the cardboard, or the box as a whole, its strength. What happened at Virginia Tech was devastating, and we will never be the same. What we have to do is find our core and use that strength to heal.
When tragedy is for sale, it isn’t tragic enough
Issue Date:Tuesday April 17, 2007 Section: Editorial Section Ry Rivard, City Editor By the end of the Monday it was obvious that the media had begun selling the day's horrors at Virginia Tech. No matter the gravity or magnitude of a tragedy, this country's commentators veer from events as they are, in and of themselves horrible, to a decontextualized, surreal account of things so they can be sold to and consumed by us. The shooting - the deadliest shooting in American history - quickly became, for some people, another chance to make various political points. It became, by the time Wolf Blitzer's show aired, a sort of tragic-porn, a way for the media to provoke rather than inform. Commentators tried to politicize it, politicians tried to comment on it, the news channels tried to heighten the drama with their usual parade of loud music and epic comparisons, "This is worse than ... " or "This is the biggest ... " Was what happened not enough in and of itself? Glenn Reynolds, law professor at University of Tennessee, quickly posted a 52-page paper on his popular Weblog arguing that the best way to prevent shootings like Monday's is to permit concealed handguns. It was the day's most academic approach to the event, but it was also one of the most callous. Written by two economists, the paper concluded that "the only policy factor to influence multiple victim public shootings is the passage of concealed handgun laws." Reynolds and several others who followed his lead took the deaths of 33 students to advance an agenda which, although done in an attempt to stop such events in the future, made them into a policy argument. Similarly, the Drudge Report, a conservative news site, dragged out a fourth-month old story from Roanoke Times about failed piece of legislation that would have permitted concealed handguns. It reported, "Virginia Tech spokesman Larry Hincker was happy to hear the bill was defeated. 'I'm sure the university community is appreciative of the General Assembly's actions because this will help parents, students, faculty and visitors feel safe on our campus.'" The point was: if students hadn't had to wait for the police to arrive, Monday's shootings would have been an incident and not a tragedy. The effect of their ill-made point was that gun control advocates were somehow responsible for the shooting. In response, the Huffington Post highlighted a story that the White House affirmed the "president believes that there is a right for people to bear arms." Their point: if only there had been a law against carrying weapons (and there is - VT's handbook doesn't permit guns on campus), this wouldn't have happened. The effect of that point was that somehow the Second Amendment or the Bush Administration was responsible for the shooting. The politicians, meanwhile, all took care to come out and say how horrible the events were. Perhaps they thought if they didn't grandstand on TV with their condolences, someone might mistake their silence for support? The news channels proved again that constant, breathless coverage undermines the fundamental tragedy, horror and fact of an event. CNN escalated its description of the shootings from "monumental" to a "rampage" to a "massacre," to a "bloodbath," as if their appellations signified anything but their desire to sell the story. By Monday evening, each station had begun saying as often as possible how tragic the obvious tragedy was, and how horrible the horror was - and at the same time they plugged their own brand: "Stay tuned to us for ... " For what? For whatever scarce news they could pry from any student on the VT campus they could pull aside and, occasionally, attempt to provoke into more tears with probing, useless questions. CNN kept mentioning their "I Reporters," which is their way of saying "people who sent us pictures from their cell phones." If the media's reaction Monday was a sign of the American psyche, we are a country that cannot understand an event outside of a political framework, and we are a country that cannot understand an event as it is. There were two terrible but - compared to the media's carnival barker commentary - honest accounts from Monday. The first was cell phone video footage taken outside the building of the shootings that captured the sounds of 27 shots being fired, presumably into somebody. It was replayed and replayed and, after a while, it became a selling point for CNN rather than a way to describe the day's events. The second account, reminiscent of Sept. 11, came from a student who told ABC News, "Everyone started panicking and jumping out the window." But there is nothing anyone can say that makes it make sense, so, from Lord Byron: And thou art dead, as young and fair As aught of mortal birth; And form so soft, and charms so rare, Too soon return'd to Earth! Though Earth receiv'd them in her bed, And o'er the spot the crowd may tread In carelessness or mirth, There is an eye which could not brook A moment on that grave to look. -- Original Source: The Daily Athenaeum http://www.da.wvu.edu/show_article.php?&story_id=27550
Business as usual at high school after Virginia Tech shootings
By Ryan Bray GateHouse Media Thu May 03, 2007, 02:22 PM EDT Scituate - In the two weeks since the Virginia Tech shootings swept through the college town of Blacksburg, Va., people nationwide are still struggling to grasp and adjust to the tragic events that left 33 students and faculty members at the school dead. But miles an miles away from all the mourning and controversy, it's business as usual at Scituate High School, as students and faculty members go about their daily routines. Students rush about the halls while seniors, many of whom are in the process of hearing back from colleges and making their plans for the fall, count down the remaining days of their high school careers. "It hasn't impacted them at all," said Sherri Lewis, director of guidance at the high school, regarding the impact of the shooting on outgoing students. "They all seem very excited." But while students have carried on with things as they otherwise would, that's not to say that the Virginia Tech shootings haven't had some effect on the school, however slight. Principal Donna Nuzzo-Mueller said the shootings are of greater concern to teachers than to students, whom have come to learn of the tragedies from a distance through television and the news. "I think our educators dwell on this more than the young people do," Nuzzo-Mueller said. "Developmentally at their age, I think it's difficult to grasp the severity of it all at that stage of their lives." However, students are reacting in their own ways. Nuzzo-Mueller said several school groups and clubs have rallied to raise money for a fund established for the families of the shooting victims. Others, she said, have likely dealt with the tragedy outside the school with friends and family. "We certainly have kids who want to reach out and help, and that's natural," she said. The shootings almost immediately brought attention to the issue of how to better prepare and respond in the event of a similar emergency in the future. Administrators and campus police officials came under fire from parents and the media in the days following the event for what some saw as an inadequate response to the shootings, while locally, Gov. Deval Patrick met with administrators from public colleges and universities across the state to discuss how to best safeguard students in the event of another shooting. But Nuzzo-Mueller said at the high school, there isn't much the school can likely do to prepare for a similar attack beyond the school's current emergency evacuation plan. She said incidents of the scale and magnitude of Virginia Tech or Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo., could never be fully prepared for in spite of the best efforts from faculty and administrators. "It all just shows that it could happen to anybody," Nuzzo-Mueller said. "It's a problem that just exists. There's always a slice of humanity that struggles with this issue. No matter what plan are put in place, you'd likely have to adapt to the situation should one arise." Superintendent of Schools Mark Mason said he would meet with security advisers next week to discuss the potential for increased security within the district's six schools. But while student safety is always top priority, Mason said a balance must be struck between what's too much and not enough. "It's a philosophical question," he said. "We want to keep our schools safe, but do we want to keep the kids in lockdown mode throughout the year?" Nuzzo-Mueller said she is uncertain if any outgoing seniors will be attending Virginia Tech in the fall. She said that while graduates have gone on to attend the school in the past, it is not common from year to year. -- Original Source: Scituate Mariner http://www.townonline.com/scituate/education/x1592158543 Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0.
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Yankees Game Provides Entertainment and Healing
By Ryan Call Sports Writer March 18, 2008 The World Series is widely believed to be the highest stage for any level of baseball player and one would think that the most successful baseball franchise in the world would think no differently. However, despite the 26 World Series titles the Yankee organization has won and the numerous All-Star players with celebrity status that fill their roster, the men in pin stripes think in much grander terms. "Arguably this is the most important game I've played in my Yankee career," All-Star third baseman Alex Rodriguez said. " It makes you realize the important things about life and really how fragile it can be. We're all very proud to be here." Rodriguez also put into perspective the importance of the day. "It would have been easy just to send the checks and wish the school well but I think it was important for us to be here and be present and go that extra mile. To come here to Virginia Tech and unite with them for one day is very important. Baseball can be very therapeutic," Rodriguez said. The Yankees team captain Derek Jeter drew similarities between April 16th and America's other recent great tragedy. "This reminds me a little bit of September 11th," Jeter said. " We had an opportunity to visit a lot of families and people always asked 'well what can you do, how does this help?' I really don't know. It just makes people smile for the three hours while we're here." Before the game the Yankees visited the memorial for the victims of the April 16th tragedy. Manager Joe Girardi said that it was very moving and brought tears to his eyes. "I'm sure there were a ton of emotions as players walked around the monuments. It's a real reminder of how precious life is and to me it should have moved our players—and that's a good thing," Girardi said. The game itself lacked many very exciting moments but the crowd was enthusiastic nonetheless. At times the crowd seemed torn between wanting to see a Rodriguez grand slam (he had two chances to do so and failed) or see one of their fellow Hokies strike out a big name Yankee. To the delight of a few thousand fans, many stars worked the fence during the pre-game, signing as many autographs as possible. This kind of interaction with the larger-than-life superstars made the day for several Tech students. "As a Yankee fan my entire life, it really shows what a class organization they are. It shows that superstars out there care about stuff that happens like this and will take the time out of their day to come out here and play for us," sophomore Christine Onidi said. "It means the world to us, I couldn't have more respect for them. It's fantastic and shows these sporting teams actually care," junior Robbie Zayas said. "I'm still soaking this all in and I was lucky enough to get a couple of players' autographs." Most of the Yankee stars only played three innings and then enjoyed the rest of the game and atmosphere sitting outside the dugout. Toward the end of the game, many of the players went back into the crowd to sign autographs. The final score was 11-0 as the Hokies could only manage two hits off the major league pitching. There were no homeruns in the game. President Randy Levine and Executive Vice President Hal Steinbrenner said the process in aiding Virginia Tech took a matter of minutes after they received a phone call from "The Boss", Yankee's owner George Steinbrenner. The elder Steinbrenner told Levine and his son to get in touch with the people at Virginia Tech because they wanted to donate a million dollars and play a spring training game in Blacksburg next season if it could be worked out. "The tragedy was of such giant proportion. It doesn't matter if there's any connection between the Yankees and Virginia Tech prior to the event. We all had to rally around them," Levine said. -- Original Source:http://www.planetblacksburg.com/2008/03/yankees_game_provides_entertainment_and_healing.php
Virginia Tech - Personal Update for Ryan and his family
Apr 16th, 2007 by Ryan Lanham For those who know I am at Virginia Tech, both my family and myself are accounted for and uninvolved in any way in the shooting. Local sources (channel 7) report 22 dead. (see update below...now at least 31...) I was in Burruss Hall and heard gunshots at approximately 10AM. I spoke with one associate who reported having to evacuate Norris by stepping past or over a fatality. I have no other first-hand information other than to report that both my family and myself are safe. Update: The worst shooting incident in American history apparently occurred within earshot of my office. When we had huddled in my boss Minnis Ridenour's office, we heard gun shots around 10AM. The tragedy is obviously considerable. People I know well are reporting on national and international news. My neighbors and friends who are EMTs treated the wounded both from the 7:15AM dorm shooting and from Norris. For local friends, Sue O. was at the Burger King doing triage. The schools locked down early and people on campus acted admirably. We are, here in Blacksburg, VA, some 40 miles from the nearest small commercial airport at Roanoke, VA. To have something occur like this in a place of rural beauty at a campus that is quite closely knit and exceedingly friendly seems truly random in the most shocking sort of way. My thoughts are with the families of those injured and dead. -- Original Source: http://ryanlanham.wordpress.com/2007/04/16/virginia-tech-personal-update/ Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported.
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Broken heart's here at Virginia Tech
Apr 18th, 2007 by Ryan Lanham This day, two days after the shootings at Virginia Tech, is a day of broken hearts. The eyes of those who love the place realize it is now defined...like Kent State, like Columbine, as a tragic event, particularly for most people outside the immediate community. That set of moments will always be...a where were you when...time. It is now the historical event of tours and commentators fifty years hence. The shooter has ensured his fame as a parting shot of narcissism. My boss and mentor has given over 30 years to the campus from a time when it was a sleepy state school that charged $18 a credit hour, or something like that, to helping it grow into a research institution of international note. It breaks my heart to see the heartbreak in his eyes. His love of the place helps me help him in his work; his disappointment and sadness magnify my own. In some ways to see his disappointment is almost the worst of it for me. I was in his office, locked in behind two doors but near enough to open windows to hear gun shots, as the whole crisis unfolded. He was, as usual, fatherly and wise. I could not help but wonder if his leadership at the moment of crisis might have made a difference. But so far as I can tell there are no lessons in any of this. The whole thing appears startlingly random. Gun ownership is falling rather rapidly in the United States and it would be utterly impossible to achieve any legislative gain on the issue in the face of those who are its advocates and protectors. The student was a loner who had troubling fantasies, but that would only put him amongst maybe 15% of his peers (at least). I heard today at a press conference that 7-30% of the student body is seen for counselling in the course of a year. Mental health is a real issue, and this fellow wasn't even really in the system like 10s of thousands of other college students. The university probably didn't act perfectly, but who would have? And second guessing such a singular event seems work I am uninterested in...it was a windy, colder Monday morning at this huge institution with thousands of drivers and issues in play. Mishandled? Well, in such an environment everything is probably mishandled in one way or another. I can't see great error from what I have heard. The flow of better information seems to be the best and consistent lesson learned from most crises I have been involved with (including this one). Could there have been some sort of electronic locking system or metal doors on each classroom? Should we have had a texting system? Who can say? The press has been omnipresent but mostly respectful, I'd judge. Only some of them seem to be the ghoulish dirty laundry sorts. Still, mourning is difficult in their presence. Consequently, the environment is more surreal than mournful so far. The husk of the Norris building sits nearby to where I write this. Police come and go wiping the sweat from their heads. They too seem distressed at the magnitude of the crime scene. The one Virginia Tech police officer I spoke briefly to...in order to thank him...had a sort of look as if he were ashamed not more could be done. I don't think I was misreading him...something combining shame and fatigue ran over his face. To my mind there is no need for shame...far from it. I know of no one who expected more from these folks. They did not resolve the crisis, but they acted and responded doing their best. That alone took great courage especially after two security/police deaths in this small town within the year. The young son of the Blacksburg Rescue Squad chief came briefly to my house to play with my children yesterday. The woman watching him said his parents "needed a break." I know the father fairly well and went camping with him once. He's a tough and internalized guy. I have thought about his cleaning up those bodies several times. How do you absorb that? I find my mind drifting to questions of who will have to clean up the floors and the walls. Will janitors face that? How long will blood drops be found here or there...under a desk. It seems to me you have to sort of start afresh with it. Empty it. Maybe even close the building. Why do I think about those things? I also cannot help but think of other disaster sites. There was a movie on HBO not long ago on the Tsunami in Thailand that touched on these unspeakable topics. It was engaging because those human issues...not the usual press garbage, was addressed. Many families are about on campus. I'm not sure how people are staying here. The hotels must be packed. There must be tens of thousands of people who aren't from here milling around. The camera crews and reporters alone must be into the thousands. Less than $1,000 worth of guns and bullets. A few chains and locks. And maybe 3 hours of insanity. Not only many lives changed or destroyed, but a place defined and branded. The only sense is one of heartbreak. -- Original Source: http://ryanlanham.wordpress.com/2007/04/18/broken-heart/ Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported.
Some thoughts on the Cho identity and mass murder
April 18th, 2007 by Ryan Lanham I know very little about profoundly deviant behavior of this sort. It has never much interested me. I tend to turn off the channels where it is dealt with. I have extended familial ties to some protracted and difficult cases but rarely anything profoundly deviant like this. I have also had many friends and acquaintances who cope with various forms of mental illness in their relationships both near and extended. But this seems to be of a different sort...I think. I so far believe it isn't a "9" on a scale where many folks are showing up at the mental health center with a level 4 or 5 problem. But on that I may be sadly wrong. Things erode rapidly sometimes. Tear out hope from people and prospects go decay in a hurry. But people are usually self-destructive first...not outwardly destructive. Something is different when people need to spread a blight. It seems to me that the Virginia Tech murderer reached several cross-over points. For example, he constructed an identity of persecution. I am sure he had opportunities to back out of this, but he chose not to. He wanted to be persecuted. I notice this desire in many larger groups...sometimes whole nations. It is a need to be selected as a target of unfairness. At some level we all feel it. It is very hard to look for a job, for example, in academia without some sense of constant rejection. Maybe it is luck to get help or a positive turn, and some folks just aren't lucky. Maybe Cho never got cut a break. But it seems like he did get at least a few breaks to hear it from his roommates. He CHOSE to not find happiness. Perhaps that paranoia is an element of a broader delusional identity, but all that sounds annoyingly redundant. I must say that the psychological descriptions of these things feel inadequate. It is as if there are things unsaid or said as categorizations that seem deficient to offer any insight beyond a label. There is a Peanuts cartoon with Lucy psychoanalyzing Charlie Brown's fears. She says that if we can find out what he is afraid of..."we" can label it. It ends there to some ironic comic effect. The label is all Charlie Brown is going to get. DSM IV is my sister-in-law's bible on these things. I have seen her read it at length. But from what I have seen of it, it is often very uncertain and highly generalized in its descriptions. Can anyone be paranoid on a given day? I often wonder whether people who are less than nice all the time carry the burden of common labels. Identity is profound in all these cases. Universities clearly gather many people who are loners, focused, obsessive, and often politically extreme. But violence is not the usual outlet, so far as I can tell. I think I have read that suicides are typically higher amongst graduate students than the norm, but that might be also readily expected from the stress. One sees faculty and students alike who demonstrate all sorts of unsual forms of expression or self-awareness. Sometimes it comes as a rarified sense of aesthetic or insight. Other forms come as a need to be "in" or considered "bright." Some thrive on power or influence over others as a teacher or mentor or special peer. Still other forms come as a need to be considered of a particular ethical purity. Usually it is exacting in my experience. There is a need for precision far beyond what could be taken as usual or appropriate. This sort of intensity is a form of boundary spanning that can be innovative if benign. Or it can be destructive, and often minimally policed. Given the general collapse of collective standards in the academy, I think these sorts of explosions are my likely than we'd like to think. I also think they are playing out in mini versions all too often. But people find means of coping and controlling themselves. Here that control was not present. An artist or innovator must also loosen the bounds of control, but there is a commitment to not hurt. It is almost like the difference between the responsible community business person and the naked aggression of a self-serving capitalist. There is a different...ethic. But is there a different psychology? And what would that mean? The identity is formed as it encounters situations. Context is everything...but also not everything. We must know actors, actor prior states, and contexts. But perhaps we must also know context prior states. It is difficult to say the least. Original source: http://ryanlanham.wordpress.com/2007/04/18/some-thoughts-on-the-cho-identity-and-mass-murder/ Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0
PERSPECTIVE: Personal instinct only defense against tragic news
By:Ryan MacDonald Posted: 4/18/07 In the days following a great tragedy, we as human beings collectively exhibit a variety of distinct reactions. Some will experience fear. This response is inevitably redoubled by a media which profits on false dependency -- cable news network owners want Americans to believe that without a constant and unfettered flow of semi-useful detail they will lack the needed information to survive the evening. Others sink deeply into depression. A few bleak hours permanently darken the thousands that they have spent on this planet. A state of war looms on all horizons. A third group will clamor for explanations and solutions. Quick fixes will be enticing and will abound. Pundits and politicians will congest the airwaves and television screens calling for every reform from censorship of music to religious revival. Erroneous causal connections will be purported, and the vulnerable masses will be lost in the sea of competing ideologies. On Monday, tragedy struck. As news poured in from various outlets we learned the shooting at Virginia Tech was the worst in American history. Reporters interrogated school officials about the identity of the shooter and why he was able to carry out two rounds of mass murder without being caught. People will struggle with causes and effects for weeks; they will pour over preventative solutions; news outlets will inject dramatic twists of plot to increase viewership and revenue. Confusion and disillusionment will not be in short supply. Amid all of this, though, I urge you to reflect deeply on the events of April 16 and the aftermath. What is your immediate response? How will this affect your perception of the world? What would you do to change things? Preempt the onslaught of ideology before it reaches your ears. Although I run the risk of being labeled a hypocrite by putting forth a moral position, I'd like to share some of my personal reflections. First of all, the most essential fact of the matter is that an individual was able to acquire fire arms and commit a horrendous act. Immediately I was reminded of my time as an intern in a London law firm where I learned that possession of a firearm carries a five-year sentence there. The rest of Europe views guns as an even darker evil. Mass shootings do not occur in Europe. Although violence certainly exists there, the weapon of choice is a knife. A man with a knife will never kill 32 people by himself. In the United States, politicians court potential voters by leaking a video of their hunting trips. As John Stewart recently pointed out, Americans do not see the apparent contradiction in being a hunter and standing on a pro-life platform. The possession and ownership of firearms is protected by Constitutional amendment. Guns are entrenched in American politics and culture. However, many fail to realize that the Constitution is not an infallible document. it had once barred blacks and women from voting, allowed for slavery and banned liquor. When the Constitution is wrong, it can and should be amended. Gun enthusiasts will present the opposite information. In fear of losing their gruesome, death-oriented pastime they will lobby politicians to blame this tragedy on gangsta rap or video games. They want to hide the fact that the domestic arms proliferation for which they are responsible is inextricably linked to the massacre of innocents. Guns kill people. Period. Where no guns exist, violence isn't as rampant. As I remarked earlier, you may brand these remarks as ideology and apply the above criticism of political opportunism to my own words. I accept this and consider it fair. However, I challenge you to reflect deeply and with self honesty. Consider the sanctity which we afford guns in America. Don't allow yourself to fear entering the classroom or walking the streets. If it is possible, let's grasp this occasion to engender change and put forth well thought out, constructive critiques of our lives and our nation. Ryan MacDonald is a senior in the College of Arts and Sciences. -- Original Source:The Daily Free Press - April 18, 2007
hi my names Ryan meyer i go to norristown high school in pa i was crying with u guys when ur friends passed away i think about u guys on that campus all the time ur in my prayers awayls i love u guys even tho i dont know u please write back to me im sorry for ur lost once again