Who Was Cho Seung-Hui, and How Did He Kill So Many?

The serial numbers on the two weapons had been filed off, the officials said.

One law enforcement official said Cho's backpack contained a receipt for a March purchase of a Glock 9 mm pistol.

Col. Steve Flaherty, superintendent of the Virginia State Police, said it was reasonable to assume that Cho was the shooter in both attacks but that link was yet definitive.

"There's no evidence of any accomplice at either event, but we're exploring the possibility," he said.

Cho was a permanent legal resident of the United States, according to a Homeland Security Department official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the information had not been announced.

If this
incident is like most others, Chief Flinchum isn’t all that much better
off to the rest of us. Between his first cup of coffee this morning and
now, he’s been the front man handling the largest criminal massacre in
U.S. history. He’s had to make a hundred decisions that he didn’t have
three seconds to consider carefully, and his officers have had to do
the same. The bodies haven’t been removed yet, and the sharks are
looking for some official to blame. I didn’t hear anyone blaming the
guy that was doing the shooting.

As I said, there are lots of things we don’t know right now, but
I’ll hazard a few comments with the information we do know in mind.

One student who was interviewed by the Associated Press expressed
his “outrage” at the way the campus community was notified of the
shooting (what timing – the student is being interviewed on CNN as I
type). The story says that the first shooting occurred at 0700 and
there was no e-mail notification until 0922. He apparently wanted a
faster and more complete lockdown.

Let’s look at that scenario. Virginia Tech has over 25,000 students
and fewer than 50 police officers. At 0700, most classes are not yet in
session, and students are starting to walk to class. I don’t know how
many buildings the campus has—I gave up counting when I hit 200. In my
experience, college students and their professors are not folks who
readily yield to authority figures without explanation, debate, and
often defiance. If anyone has a suggestion as to how a campus of this
magnitude can be locked down any more quickly than it was, I’d love to
hear it. And I’ll bet that whoever makes that suggestion has never
tried it out.

I also suspect that Chief Flinchum has gotten used to “selling” his
enforcement schemes to his minders in the Ivory Tower. Professors
generally regard campus police as a necessary evil, useful mainly for
unlocking their offices when they have forgotten their keys. I hope
those professors will remember the photo I saw of two university
officers sprinting to the scene. Everyone else is running away from the
gunfire while they ran towards it. I am speculating here, but it
wouldn’t surprise me to learn that a police officer wanted the campus
to be locked down immediately, and was told to hold his horses while
the chance of appearing overreactive was discussed by people with lots
of letters after their names.

I will speculate further that Virginia Tech frowns on the possession
of firearms by anyone other than police officers. Look back to my
previous blog entry for my comments in that regard. One armed, trained
person in the right place…I might as well wish for next week’s lottery
numbers.

This tragedy is only going to be aggravated by people looking for
someone to blame for it, when the responsible party is so evident. He’s
dead, but I don’t think the situation would be much better if he had
been taken into custody. People would still be second-guessing the cops.

There will be a lot more to follow on this, but I’ll close with a
comment that Chief Flinchum made at the press conference. A reporter
asked a condescending question to the effect of “Isn’t this an unusual
type of incident for a college police department to handle?” The chief
replied with all of the tact he was able to muster, “This is an unusual
incident for any police department to handle.” I would have stuck the
word “moron” or something more colorful into that response, but the
chief is clearly a more diplomatic leader than me.