Virginia Tech thread, Part II

[yolland]

Since the first Virginia Tech shootings thread has reached 500 posts, I'm creating a new one. Feel free to quote and carry over any posts you'd like to respond to from the previous thread, subject only to...


Please read the below before posting to this thread.

Please keep in mind that we have forum members here who have been directly, and tragically, affected by this incident and obviously do not have a "detached" attitude towards it. The previous thread provided, among other things, a welcome and needed source of support and recognition for the trauma those members were and are experiencing, and we ask that you respect the potential of this one to do the same.

As this story is still very much unfolding, it's impossible for me to spell out precisely what may or may not violate that intent. The mods may ask at some point that certain new and emerging topics or evidence relevant to the case be addressed in a separate thread, or posted in this one only in the form of a link. Please be alert for any such requests and comply with them.

-- Don't post pictures or videos of Cho Seung-Hui and his "manifesto" to NBC. Yes, it's splashed all over TV and the Internet, but posters here aren't looking to those sources for support and a comfortable space to share their personal reactions.

-- If you want to discuss the gun control issues surrounding this incident, use AchtungBono's 'Constitution' thread for that.

Otherwise and in general, posting and commenting on news updates on the progress and findings of the investigation ordered by Governor Kaine, tributes to the deceased, etc. etc. are fine. Those are discussions the extended community of Virginia Tech is having as well, so it's OK for us to have them here, too. Just use a little commonsense sensitivity in what you post and how you present it.

Thanks.

 

[Kiki]

I'm glad you put in some requests on...well on ettiquette I guess.

 

[U2democrat]

Thank you Yolland, I appreciate your sensitivity to the issue and our feelings


I've been feeling really depressed lately, my emotions have made me physically fatigued, so I'm going to be going home this weekend...plus some of my other friends from Tech will be home this weekend so I can be there for them.

Mia, you and I will have to get together this summer. I'll be done in 2 weeks, so we ought to figure out a time to hang out.

I just want to be in my own bed, with my parents and my cat, rent some feel-good movies and escape for a while.

 

[U2Girl416]

for Laura and Mia and others, and plenty of hope for better days soon

 

[yolland]

Amid the Chaos of Deaths, a Minister Attends to Those Who Are Grieving

By NEELA BANERJEE
New York Times, April 19

BLACKSBURG, Va. — Over the last three days, the Rev. Alexander W. Evans has spent his time in a cluster of small meeting rooms on the second floor of the hotel and conference center at Virginia Tech, listening over and over to a shared lexicon of grief, spoken in so many different voices.

"The reaction was the same: devastation, overwhelming pain," said Mr. Evans, who accompanied the Blacksburg and Virginia Tech police chiefs as they took families into private rooms to give them the news. "That means crumbling to the floor, crying out, ‘No, no! My baby! It can’t be!’ ...You could hear it from outside the rooms, all around you."

The pastor of Blacksburg Presbyterian Church, Mr. Evans, 49, also serves as a Blacksburg Police Department chaplain. From the time he got a phone call from the police Monday morning, he has listened and spoken to those closest to the killings of the 32 Virginia Tech students and faculty members: the police officers who rushed into Norris Hall and found all but the two victims who had been shot dead about two hours earlier in a dormitory, and the families who now wait to take them home. “There is no way to prepare for this, to train for this,” Mr. Evans said. “It demands all of our compassion as human beings. It demands that we help each other through it.”

Mr. Evans’s first assignment began Monday afternoon at the police command center next to Norris Hall, where only a few hours earlier a gunman, Cho Seung-Hui, had chained the doors shut before going from classroom to classroom, calmly shooting at everyone inside before putting the gun to his own head and pulling the trigger one last time. At the command center, Mr. Evans met the officers who had rushed to Norris and shot the locks from the chained doors to get inside. “It means running into your most impossible fear,” he said. “It is facing evil and its result.”

The police here, he said, are well-trained, but the chaos and agony they saw had exhausted them. “Several said they had never seen anything like this,” Mr. Evans said. “A number of them were dealing with the wounded, dragging them out of the building and racing them to the hospital in their own cars. They were repeating the cries of the students, they were telling me that the students were saying, ‘I’m going to die, I’m going to die.’ That’s the kind of thing that keeps you up at night.” The youth of the victims has been “at the core of the pain” of many officers, Mr. Evans said. “They could see their own kids, a roomful of kids.”

On Monday night, after an impromptu prayer vigil at his church, Mr. Evans was called again, this time to work with other chaplains, counselors and administrators on the death notifications. Once the police notified one family member of a death, it fell to Mr. Evans to tell other relatives as they arrived at the center, the Inn at Virginia Tech. The first person he was with was the older sister of a young woman who was killed. The rest of her family arrived around midnight. One relative walked up to him and said, “Do we know anything?” “And all I said was, ‘Yes,’ ” Mr. Evans said. “And then they knew.”

The dead were taken to the medical examiner’s office in Roanoke, which is not set up to handle personal identifications of so many people, Mr. Evans said. Instead, the coroner’s office used forensic evidence to confirm an identity. Only in a few instances were photos sent to the Inn so relatives could identify a victim. Sometimes one family member would view the photos, sometimes a group. “That was probably the most difficult,” Mr. Evans said. “The visual identification makes the reality that much more painful.”

Now that all notifications have been made, he said, anger is growing among some families because they cannot claim their relatives from the coroner’s office until autopsies are complete. Mr. Evans understands that anger, he said, just as he understands the need for a thorough investigation. Once the autopsies are complete, the victims will be released to funeral homes chosen by their families, and only then will relatives be able to see their loved ones.

Mr. Evans said he hoped he had been able to show both the police officers and victims’ relatives who are suffering that they were not alone and that they were not without God. “I think God is crying with all those who are crying and giving encouragement to all those giving encouragement,” he said, “and urging us to find ways to make a safer, more peaceful society.”

 

[BonosBaby12]

Laura stay strong and surround yourself with the love of your family and friends this weekend

 

[MrsSpringsteen]

ATLANTA - Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick has teamed up with the United Way to donate $10,000 to assist families affected by the massacre at Virginia Tech, his former school.
"When tragic things like this happen, families have enough to deal with, and if I can help in some small way, that’s the least I can do," said Vick, who played for the Hokies before being drafted No. 1 overall by the Falcons in 2001.
The Vick Foundation is collecting donations from local communities in both Atlanta and Virginia that will be placed in the United In Caring Fund for Victims of the VA Tech Tragedy and the special fund at the United Way of Montgomery, Radford and Floyd counties, which serves the Virginia Tech area.
Vick’s foundation said the money will be used to provide help with funeral expenses, transportation for family members and other support services.

 

[bonoishot]

Mia and Laura i'm glad you will be with friends/family this weekend.

 

[Kiki]

I just read that article on Colin Goddark and how the shooter came in to his classroom.
Well....I understand now why I've instictivly put on water proof mascara and took a box of kleenex to my desk this afternoon.

 

[MrsSpringsteen]

This is very nice-people have posted their comments about each person

http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2007/virginiatech.shootings/victims/index.html

 

[kellyahern]

ATLANTA - Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick has teamed up with the United Way to donate $10,000 to assist families affected by the massacre at Virginia Tech, his former school.
"When tragic things like this happen, families have enough to deal with, and if I can help in some small way, that’s the least I can do," said Vick, who played for the Hokies before being drafted No. 1 overall by the Falcons in 2001.
The Vick Foundation is collecting donations from local communities in both Atlanta and Virginia that will be placed in the United In Caring Fund for Victims of the VA Tech Tragedy and the special fund at the United Way of Montgomery, Radford and Floyd counties, which serves the Virginia Tech area.
Vick’s foundation said the money will be used to provide help with funeral expenses, transportation for family members and other support services.

This is a link to the fund site:

http://www.unitedwaynrv.org/Details.asp?ContentID=2137355581&TOCID=-1267001892

 

[Teta040]

Class act all the way Yolland. Thanks so much.

Mia, I may not have much time to post, but I am praying for you...and Democrat and everyone else....

May God bless you all and give you strength.....

 

[deep]

I understand why so many people are upset with NBC for releasing pictures and videos of the killer.

But, there is a positive side to it.

I believe it is real clear now,
that this one individual did all this by himself.

There should not be any conspiracy theories about this,
being a covert plan by a group with some agenda.

On Monday evening there were people on the talk stations floating some wild Manchurian candidate schemes, and so forth.

 

[U2democrat]

We had a statewide candlelight vigil tonight, campuses all across virginia at 9 o'clock gathered.

At ours we had at least 500 people show up (which is a lot for my school), we sang Amazing Grace, and a guy on the trumpet played Taps. Needless to say there wasn't a dry eye among us...even the media people that were there were wiping their eyes.

Speaking of the media, the local newspaper's photographer who took my photo Tuesday night at our previous vigil was there again tonight, and he came up to me to check and make sure I was doing well...that was very nice of him.

I've finally been able to really laugh today...I really have some of the greatest friends anyone could ask for. We've all been grieving, so today we just wanted to be goofy and make the pain go away, even if it was only temporary. I won't even mention here what we were joking about because it is too dirty for this particular thread, (let me just say it has to do with Tony Blair, tight pants, and world peace) but we were all happy and laughing.

Mia I hope you can get together with friends and family and have some lighter moments as well. We should get together this summer, watch some U2 DVDs, and have fun.


s to all who have been so supportive to us.

ETA: We also did the "Let's Go Hokies!" chant at the end of the vigil. Very moving.

 

[BonosBaby12]

I may not be a fan of Michael Vick but what he is doing to help out everyone is incredibly generous and very thoughtful. Truly is comforting to see so many pull together during this time.

 

[JCOSTER]

Laura; Hope you are doing better and find some peace in the coming days.

 

[cruzila]

Laura and Mia.... I'm thinking of you guys and I hope you can feel my 's from here. I won't let go until you're ready!

 

[U2MaNaIcWeIdO]

Laura and Mia.....I'm still thinking of you guys and I hope you are around the people who love you

 

[trevster2k]

This is a good idea. It saddens me that we have to actually have a contingency plan for this event.

The RCMP is gathering aerial photographs and blueprints of thousands of schools across Canada as part of its plan for responding to school shootings, which it unveiled Thursday

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/ottawa/story/2007/04/19/rcmp-schools.html

 

[maycocksean]

I saw some of the manifesto stuff on msnbc last night. I read the article, but felt I didn't want to see the video. It just didn't seem right.

I watched news coverage on CNN for the first time last night as well. They were playing the manifesto stuff of course. I turned off the TV.

 

[BonosBaby12]

Mia and Laura May there be brighter moments coming soon for you ray:

 

[U2democrat]

Here's an article on the vigil my school had last night:
http://www.dailypress.com/news/dp-12756sy0apr20,0,3640793.story?coll=dp-widget-news

I'm in the photo too, but you have to really look to find me.

 

[redhotswami]

Hi everyone. First, I really want to thank Interference, and all who've posted in this thread and the other. This has been a place for me to express myself, vent, and even seek refuge. Your continued comments of hope, love, and support really do warm my heart.

I just wanted to tell you all that I'm going to a group counseling session for graduate students today. They will be addressing such things as taking care of ourselves, and helping our students cope. As well as moving on. Which, I'm actually curious about, because I was supposed to defend, so I may not get to graduate. But we'll see.

Thanks again everyone.

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

the school where i work has suspended school uniforms today to allow students to wear maroon and orange to school... the school's colors are normaly black and red, but ya couldn't tell today... almost every student & faculty member is decked out in maroon and/or orange in support of VaTech

 

[BVS]

^ That's awesome.

 

[Tiger Edge]

The University of Miami did a vigil the other night and they quickly made a whole bunch of shirts with this logo on it:

Here's some vigil photos: http://www6.miami.edu/communications/umresponds/vigil.html

I understand that my school did it too, but I go to an adjacent campus and missed the whole thing.
We have a facebook group too, though we aren't as organized as UM:

 

[Liesje]

We were supposed to wear maroon today. I didn't know. I have plenty of maroon, b/c my elementary school colors and our college's colors are maroon and gold.

I'm wearing khaki and turquoise

 

[oktobergirl]

Thinking of everyone of V Tech today, including Mia and Laura.

 

[BoMac]

I understand that my school did it too, but I go to an adjacent campus and missed the whole thing.
We have a facebook group too, though we aren't as organized as UM:

I hope that's not an actual poster plastered around campus for the simple reason that "Hokies" is misspelled!

I hope everyone that has been affected by this tragedy gets the love and support they need.

 

[Liesje]

We were supposed to wear maroon today. I didn't know. I have plenty of maroon, b/c my elementary school colors and our college's colors are maroon and gold.

I'm wearing khaki and turquoise

Oh, this is what I missed:

The Virginia Tech Alumni Association, and the state's governor, are asking Americans to show support for the shooting victims and their families by wearing the school's colors on "Orange and Maroon Effect" day tomorrow (Friday, April 20). Since maroon is one of Calvin's school colors this request seemed like a very appropriate way for people at Calvin to show support. So please come to Calvin tomorrow wearing something maroon as together we stand in prayer and solidarity with our colleagues at Virginia Tech. Orange and Maroon Effect day began a few years ago as a way for students, alumni and fans to show school spirit at sporting events. The idea to designate tomorrow as such a day began as an e-mail circulating that picked up steam and has since spread to colleges, universities and more across the nation.

~Gaylen Byker, President