i'm not condoning ANYTHING this guy did, but doesn't ANYONE see a pattern with these shootings? all of these kids were bullied a LOT more than normal... obviously the tactics of, "inform a teacher", or "just ignore the bully" isn't working, and we're paying for it with the lives of the innocent!!
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18169776/?GT1=9246
High school classmates say gunman was bullied
Police say package sent to NBC News between shootings is of little use
Slide show
?Our culpability in this situation, as a society, has been mischaracterized. Where we fell down was not in our lack of coddling this idiot or some misstep in guiding his defective and deviant urges towards more constructive ends. We are a society based on self-sufficiency, and those who are not self-sufficient are intrinsically barred from being full members of our society. Where we fell down was not Cho. We fell down with everyone else in that classroom. We taught them to be cowards, and then told them it was good that they were."
--MattyfromCincinnatti
NBC, MSNBC and news services
Updated: 1 hour, 6 minutes ago
BLACKSBURG, Va. - Long before he killed 32 people in the worst mass shooting in U.S. history, Cho Seung-Hui was bullied by fellow high school students who mocked his shyness and the strange way he talked, former classmates said.
Cho, 23, a senior English major at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg, killed 32 people in two attacks before taking his own life Monday. He sent a large multi-media package outlining his grievances against religion and the wealthy to NBC News, but police said Thursday that the material added little to their investigation.
The text, photographs and video in the package bristle with hatred toward unspecified people whom Cho, a South Korean immigrant, accused of having wronged him, adding to a portrait of a solitary man who rarely, if ever, managed normal social interactions.
Chris Davids, a Virginia Tech student who graduated with Cho from Westfield High School in Chantilly, Va., in 2003, recalled that Cho almost never opened his mouth and would ignore attempts to strike up a conversation.
Once, in an English class, the teacher had the students read aloud and, when it was Cho?s turn, he just looked down in silence, Davids recalled in an interview with The Associated Press. Finally, after the teacher threatened to give him a failing grade for participation, Cho started to read in a strange, deep voice that sounded ?like he had something in his mouth,? Davids said.
?As soon as he started reading, the whole class started laughing and pointing and saying, ?Go back to China,?? Davids said.
Among Cho?s victims were Reema Samaha and Erin Peterson, who both graduated from Westfield High School last year. Police said it was not clear whether Cho singled them out.
?The question mark kid?
Virginia Tech student Alison Heck said a suitemate of hers on campus found a mysterious question mark scrawled on the dry erase board on her door. The young woman went to the same high school as Cho, according to her Facebook page. Cho once scrawled a question mark on the sign-in sheet on the first day of a literature class, and other students came to know him as ?the question mark kid.?
?I don?t know if she knew that it was him for sure,? Heck said. ?I do remember that that fall that she was being stalked and she had mentioned the question mark. And there was a question mark on her door.?
Heck added: ?She just let us know about it just in case there was a strange person walking around our suite.?
The young woman could not immediately be located for comment, via e-mail or telephone.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18169776/?GT1=9246
High school classmates say gunman was bullied
Police say package sent to NBC News between shootings is of little use
Slide show
?Our culpability in this situation, as a society, has been mischaracterized. Where we fell down was not in our lack of coddling this idiot or some misstep in guiding his defective and deviant urges towards more constructive ends. We are a society based on self-sufficiency, and those who are not self-sufficient are intrinsically barred from being full members of our society. Where we fell down was not Cho. We fell down with everyone else in that classroom. We taught them to be cowards, and then told them it was good that they were."
--MattyfromCincinnatti
NBC, MSNBC and news services
Updated: 1 hour, 6 minutes ago
BLACKSBURG, Va. - Long before he killed 32 people in the worst mass shooting in U.S. history, Cho Seung-Hui was bullied by fellow high school students who mocked his shyness and the strange way he talked, former classmates said.
Cho, 23, a senior English major at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg, killed 32 people in two attacks before taking his own life Monday. He sent a large multi-media package outlining his grievances against religion and the wealthy to NBC News, but police said Thursday that the material added little to their investigation.
The text, photographs and video in the package bristle with hatred toward unspecified people whom Cho, a South Korean immigrant, accused of having wronged him, adding to a portrait of a solitary man who rarely, if ever, managed normal social interactions.
Chris Davids, a Virginia Tech student who graduated with Cho from Westfield High School in Chantilly, Va., in 2003, recalled that Cho almost never opened his mouth and would ignore attempts to strike up a conversation.
Once, in an English class, the teacher had the students read aloud and, when it was Cho?s turn, he just looked down in silence, Davids recalled in an interview with The Associated Press. Finally, after the teacher threatened to give him a failing grade for participation, Cho started to read in a strange, deep voice that sounded ?like he had something in his mouth,? Davids said.
?As soon as he started reading, the whole class started laughing and pointing and saying, ?Go back to China,?? Davids said.
Among Cho?s victims were Reema Samaha and Erin Peterson, who both graduated from Westfield High School last year. Police said it was not clear whether Cho singled them out.
?The question mark kid?
Virginia Tech student Alison Heck said a suitemate of hers on campus found a mysterious question mark scrawled on the dry erase board on her door. The young woman went to the same high school as Cho, according to her Facebook page. Cho once scrawled a question mark on the sign-in sheet on the first day of a literature class, and other students came to know him as ?the question mark kid.?
?I don?t know if she knew that it was him for sure,? Heck said. ?I do remember that that fall that she was being stalked and she had mentioned the question mark. And there was a question mark on her door.?
Heck added: ?She just let us know about it just in case there was a strange person walking around our suite.?
The young woman could not immediately be located for comment, via e-mail or telephone.
