Categories: Massacres

Virginia Tech Massacre – 2007

Virginia-Tech-Massacre-2007Virginia-Tech-Massacre-2007

The massacre at the campus of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech) was the deadliest peacetime shooting by an individual in US history. What Seung-Hui Cho demanded was a blood sacrifice from the world. His choice of victims was almost random. The exception was the first one, the girl he shot as she slept; her boyfriend was a straight arrow whom Cho happened to see at the firing range where he practiced. If he made Cho feel inferior, it was entirely in Cho’s imagination.

Everything was in his imagination; it always had been. Since childhood he had remained uncommunicative, even with his family, and his self-isolation grew more extreme when he got to Virginia Tech. His English professor noticed the anger expressed in writing projects, and pleaded with college authorities to get Cho to seek help. But that would have infringed his civil rights – like the privacy laws which prevented Virginia Tech ever knowing that Cho’s mental health had been the subject of much previous anxiety.

Cho paused after the first two shootings. He returned to his room and wrote a manifesto of his loathing for the world. In it he praised the Columbine High School killers as ‘martyrs’. Then he mailed it to NBC News. Meanwhile the police chased the wrong man, not bothering to tell the college of the nightmare – currently arming himself with guns he’d collected in previous weeks – stalking the campus.

Cho waited two hours for classes to begin, chained the doors of one of the halls shut behind him, and worked his way through four full classrooms, blazing away. In less than 15 minutes, he reduced them to blood and gore, only stopping when the police blasted open the hall doors. Then he reversed one of his pistols and shot himself. An enquiry later noted that if Cho’s human rights hadn’t prevented Virginia Tech from ‘connecting the dots’, 33 lives might have been saved.

When: April 16 2007

Where: The campus of Virginia Polytechnic institute and State University, Blacksburg, Virginia, USA

Death toll: 33 dead (27 students, five faculty members, and Cho) and 23 wounded.

You should know: Cho’s imaginary life included calling himself ‘Question Mark’; a ‘supermodel’ girlfriend called ‘Jelly’ who ‘travelled by spaceship’; and reporting to his room mate that he was ‘vacationing with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’ having ‘grown up with him in Moscow’. But a Senior in Cho’s class who read his one-act play told a friend: ‘This is the kind of guy who is going to walk into a classroom and start shooting people’.

devastating

Share
Published by
devastating

Recent Posts

5 Cities at High Risk of Major Flooding

Flooding Threats: These U.S. Cities Might Be in Danger Flooding is probably one of the…

3 days ago

4 Maritime Disasters That Left Us in Shock (Titanic’s Not Included)

What do you know about these maritime disasters? Maritime catastrophes have long captivated us, from…

5 days ago

Why Are So Many Planes Crashing Right Now?

What's going on in the aviation world? As you've likely heard, there have been quite…

6 days ago

The 4 WORST Diseases You Can Catch From Animals!

We all love animals, be they our sweet pets and companions or the ones we…

1 week ago

10 States Most at Risk for Natural Disasters in 2025

How Ready Is Your State for Natural Disasters? Have you ever taken a moment to…

2 weeks ago

6 Ways Wildfires Grow Stronger Overnight

The wildfires that happened recently in California made us think about the ways wildfires grow…

3 weeks ago