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Actually, the problems are that your arguments don't seem to follow. Again, you seem to want to use hindsight bias to interpet the events. I guess you dropped your previous "not taking domestic violence seriously" angle, eh?
"1) They had no evidence to make them believe Thornhill was a suspect. His girlfriend and her RA were dead. Question him, yes, but why put all your eggs in that basket? That kid was a lead, not an entire investigation."
What? The people known to the victim are always suspects until proven otherwise. They had a report that he was seen leaving the scene (which he was because he dropped her off in the morning) and her roomate gave the cops info that made him even more of a person of interest. Plus he was off campus and being questioned by cops. Based on that, why would VT "lockdown" the campus? What's with the eggs in the basket? There was no other incident to investigate until the second attack. Again, with the hindsight.
"2) Was every single VT security person questioning that kid? Given the previous bomb threats, why not put a couple of people towards further investigation?"
Further investigation of WHAT? Until the shooter called in the bomb threat and started shooting up the same Hall, there was nothing else to investigate.
4) Further in the pattern of non- and dis-information: in the emails -- which came too damn late, anyway -- officials said they had the killer "in custody" when he was in fact dead. Why not just say that?
What difference does it make? Besides, they announced very little about the killer until they could confirm the ballistics and indentity of the killer.
"5) I can't believe people are asking about the logistics. If you want to know how to shut down a campus the size of Virginia Tech, ask Virginia Tech. When an escaped convict was near the campus last year, VT found out around 7:30am that he had killed two people and was close to campus. Within a couple of hours, they warned, evacuated and/or locked down various parts of the campus, then closed the entire campus and canceled the first day of classes."
They knew the guy was an escaped convict who, was already being sought by the police and could be readily ID'd. IOW, they had accurate information on which to take action.
