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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
There's no point in arguing with people like bibinewyork. Unlike the president of the college who most likely lost people he knew, or campus security, or even the students, she knows best what should have been done. She made her mind up 30 seconds after the shooting that someone was at fault. Since the shooter was dead, these type of people must blame someone else.
In the world of bibinewyork, people make mistakes out of willfull incompetence and deserve to be punished. Anyone who tries to understand the situation is just as guilty.
So why bother talking to people like that. They are perfect, without sin and in every situation, they act correctly and have nothing but scorn for those who don't.
I don't think it's the school's fault. I think it would be good for everyone to try to improve security measures on campuses throughout the country, but maybe we should wait until we have all of the fact before we get out the rack and go after the first responders and the school adminstration. I'm just saying
Some people have defended the way Tech handled the crisis by saying the event was "unthinkable," and that it's unreasonable to expect someone to plan for the unthinkable.
But I say, was it really so unthinkable? Schools, workplaces and public facilities are all supposed to have plans for emergencies, such as fires, explosions, earthquakes, etc. Those emergencies do include criminal shooting rampages, which have actually occurred in the past, across the United States and in other nations. Shooting rampages have been common enough, in fact, that there's a slang term for them: "Going postal."
After Columbine, after the Olympic Park bombing in Atlanta, after the school shooting in Scotland, after numerous workplace assaults and, yes, even after 9/11, I would have expected a little more planning at Tech for the "unthinkable."
I know you would love to believe that I'm the only person in the entire world who thinks admin was at fault, but: please read the articles and talk to people who were on campus, like I have. Then spout off your nonsense about how no one deserves to know until 9:30 that people were killed on campus at 7:15. Forgive me if I believe the people who were there rather than you.
The Salon article is right, and it's not the press who are saying the administration was slow and security lax: it's parents, it's VT kids, it's people who aren't sitting at their computers, like you are, deciding that kids deserve to wait two hours to know a)there was a murder and b)there's a murderer loose among them. Several students were interviewed saying that they didn't realize there was a murder on campus.
And the people who were dense on Aug. 21 are the ones who didn't realize the campus was closed, evacuated and classes locked by 9 am. If anyone was in doubt there was a crisis at that point -- as one commenter claimed -- they're too stupid to live.
Also, KStone, please cut it out with the personal, snotty comments, like "glad you weren't in charge" or "I guess you dropped your previous "not taking domestic violence seriously" angle, eh? "
If you were able to follow a single argument past your own inane prejudices, you would see that it's still the same argument. I guess if you don't actually see the literal words "domestic dispute" you think it's not the same point. Throughout, I've been saying that campus security treated these two murders differently and kept them quiet because they thought it was a domestic dispute. They said that themselves. That assumption was wrong, they had no proof of a domestic dispute and IN ADDITION, even if they thought it was a domestic dispute, they should have acted on the only, actual thing they knew, which was: two people dead, murderer on the loose.
Please, convince me some more that people shouldn't be told of murderers on campus. Because if you convince me, since I'm the only person who thinks security acted wrongly and inefficiently, you win the Internet!
It's not all about you bibinewyork and stop cowardly hiding behind greiving kids and parents just so you can puff up your long-winded positions. Your arguments are ill considered and poorly thought out. Period.
Trying wake up 4000 college students at 7am is an efficient and effortless task.
"And the people who were dense on Aug. 21 are the ones who didn't realize the campus was closed, evacuated and classes locked by 9 am."
The campus was partially closed, classes were cancelled (by 10:30 am, if I remember right), but students were asked to stay in (or return to) their dorms or "academic areas." There were still many people on campus who could have been shot by a mentally ill shooter, in their dorms or in those "academic areas," if the shooter had been trying to engage in mass murder rather than trying to hide.
And, as many have said, the idea that all students on a campus are awake and reading their e-mails or checking their voicemails by 9 am is ludicrous.
bebe from new york: please tell us how many "entrances" there are to the Va. Tech campus, vehicular and pedestrian. Obviously you don't know or realize it's a sprawling 2,000 acre campus with hundreds of possible routes in. It isn't like a one-building high school with 5 doors to walk around a lock in 15 minutes. It's like a small town with a hundred buildings, a thousand doors. It would be impossible to "lock down" the campus, you can't just pull up the drawbridge. If you'd ever been to Tech you'd know that.
We agonized about this. Why did they wait? Why didn't they tell us, cancel classes, etc.?
Well, now we know why. The police thought they had the suspect in custody. That's why they didn't "lock down" or notify campus earlier. Conflicting information from the victim's roommate and the victim's boyfriend made it seem that they had the right person and that the situation was under control. How were they to know it was a random killing? They did the best they could with the information they had.
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Once seen as a lunatic fringe, reactionary anti-women groups are courting respectability
Salon headlines in your mailbox
