Only a moderator can do that:

Todd? Z-man? Little assist here?

FOX is saying the "person of interest" was the girl's boyfriend who lived off campus. The cops found a dead white girl and black RA in the elevator of the dorm and were investigating the girl's boyfriend. The girl's roommate said the boyfriend owned a gun. Seems like a logical path. Who whould have thought this was completely random act?

Some tragedies like this are 100% random and impossible to predict, this one was not. This guy did everything but take out an ad in the newspaper announcing that he was likely to "go postal". The system failed in this one, as much as I do not agree with most gun control laws there needs to be better mental health screening somehow for gun ownership to prevent these incidents and protect the rest of our ownership rights.

It also seems to me that if this guy was an American, say a white guy from the midwest or a black guy from DC and he wrote murderous screeds in class, stalked the schit out of women on campus, refused to speak to anyone for 4 years, (including so much as "hello"), and just generally revealed himself to be seriously disturbed in a psychotic and dangerous way that he would have been expelled and campus police would have his mug shot up in every dorm at the school.

Maybe that is just an emotional response on my part, but I'm having a hard time with this one. How could he get away with this, with so much warning?? :confused:

Did anyone call his parents?

He was 23 years old. Don't think Mom and Dad really apply with this freak. He is the one responsible for his actions.

I am not saying they are responsible. But their were warning signs and one of his professors called on the administrators and campus police. His parents were most likely paying for him to be there.

If he was as disfunctional as reports suggest - maybe his parents should have been brought in to get him some help or put him an environment that would help bring him back to reality.

Yeah, they called them afterwards. Went like this:

"Hi, this is the VT campus police calling. Your son is dead. And that's the good news..." :rolleyes:

As more and more news comes about regarding his "troubling behavior", I agree. Not to place blame, but this kid was evidently on almost everyone's radar, yet it still transpired :(

From what I know about the local Korean dry cleaners (I dated the daughter of one of them), the parents who run the shop are not involved in much beyond the shop. Their kids get Americanized because they go to school here, but the folks tend to speak just enough English to get by in the shop with the customers. And when the kids come home from school or college, they can walk in and out of Korean culture like they walk through their parents' doorway. What I mean is this nutjob could have been totally normal around his parents and other Koreans here, but a totally different person when mixed in with American kids. It's weird that way and this area has a huge Korean population, most of whom are family business owners and assimilate just enough to get by, but not nearly as much as their kids do.

I live in Koreatown in L.A., the largest Korean immigrant community in the U.S. I see on a daily basis the metamorphosis of Koreans through successive generations as they become "Americanized", and I agree with Rick that the young generation straddles the two cultures pretty completely. The Korean-born, regardless of age, are very insular and seem to have zero interest in American culture or interacting w/ Americans. Most of the U.S. born are as American as apple pie among Americans and if anything a friendly and nice group of people. This guy's problems went WAY beyond any cultural or ethnic issues, but I'm sure that in his twisted mind it added to his isolation. This was one profoundly sick individual, and he did not hide it. Sure, there are many introverted and socially awkward people around who are not psychotic or dangerous, but at the least this guy screamed "suicide" if not mass murder.

Not to go OT in OT. But imagine if you are intoroverted and socially awkward these days on a college campus? Soon you are going to have administrators up your asz with their new manual and be shunned in a BIG way by your peers... Just a thought.

I heard he was on antidepressants.

http://www.drugrecalls.com/images/jetski.jpg
http://www.drugrecalls.com/antidepressants.html
December 2006 Update: FDA Plans to Extend Antidepressant Suicide Warning


Antidepressants and Increased Suicidality
http://www.srmhp.org/0301/media-watch.html
http://www.srmhp.org/0301/mw-01.gif
Figure. Lexis-Nexis search results for “antidepressant” and “suicide” appearing in major newspaper articles and headlines.

CNN is now saying he had been treated for mental issues.

The National Instant Check System (NICS - great sounding acronym, eh) is supposed to cover this. You can't just waltz into a gun store and buy a handgun with no questions asked, which is how the news media are trying to portray VA. The questions on the stated a federal forms are pretty insulting to one's intelligence - "Are you a drug user? Are you subject to a restraining order? Are you a fugitive from justice? Have you been institutionalized?" are some of them. No one who wants to buy a gun would ever answer yes to any of them. But if you lie on the form and the NICS comes back bad, you will be denied the purcahse and the gun store will likely call the state police to come and get you. The problem is that one's medical records are not often cross-referenced by the NICS check. Had they been, this guy may have been denied a purchase. Still, he seems to have been so determined, that he would have gotten his guns elsewhere if he need to.