Hi everyone, this is Deb from Dying to be Found.
Before we get started, I just wanted to say that episodes contain disturbing discussions on harmful acts and crimes against animals and or humankind.
Recordings are not intended for young or sensitive audiences due to the content nature of this podcast.
Listener discretion is strongly advised.
Hi everyone, I'm Deb.
And I'm Corey.
And we are going to welcome you to episode number 63 of Dying to be Found.
Thanks so much for choosing this podcast.
My son Corey is here to help me out today,
which is always, in my opinion, enlightening because he gives a great perspective from a law enforcement's point of view.
Be sure to check out our episodes where I get together with other family members as well.
But for today, Corey, does anyone that you know call you a podcaster now?
No, I haven't told anyone because I'm too embarrassed because I hate my own voice.
You're embarrassed to be a podcaster because you hate your voice?
I'm sure I'll say something dumb or every time I hear my voice on a recording, I despise it.
Actually, I'm getting some good feedback on you and they think you're actually quite intelligent.
So you've got some really good feedback, but you're a real podcaster now.
Don't be embarrassed.
We need the listeners.
So get out there and tell people.
I mean, people know I have told people that you have a podcast.
I've told several people that you have a true crime podcast.
You've told people that I have a podcast, but now you have a podcast.
I don't have a podcast.
I participate in a podcast every once in a while.
I'm going to come by and I'm going to bring you stickers.
Like my summer break is coming up.
So I'm going to just head your way, show up at your work, and I'm going to pass out stickers.
Yeah.
I mean, heck, I'll put them on my water bottle and stuff because every gun company and whatnot
that I buy from gives out stickers.
So I just, I have too many.
I started putting them on my chest freezer because I have so many stickers.
I don't know what to do with.
Oh goodness.
What else is going on?
Anything new?
We have not talked in a while.
So I know you've been really busy, but you want to tell us about anything before we get into our story?
Yeah.
Work's been crazy.
We had a hostage situation the other day.
Don't be telling me too many stories that are going to get me to worry.
I don't.
Yeah.
I don't tell you a lot of things.
No, I don't tell you most of the stuff.
Oh, well, speaking of which we're going to get into a pretty heavy case today.
We're talking about the Virginia Tech massacre that took place back in 2007.
Before we started recording today, Corey, we had talked a little bit about how many school
shootings were going on over time.
What was it that you said?
There weren't too many up until recently.
Columbine was really the big one that started it.
Yeah.
They didn't really start until becoming mainstream, I guess, is a lack of a better term.
I'd say 2013, 14.
Yeah.
There was definitely a spike, Corey, between I would say, oh gosh, anytime after 2010.
I mean, historically, mass shootings in schools go back as far as the mid 1800s,
but you're only talking about a handful.
And one is too many, but we're talking about probably less than 10 in a year span.
Beginning in 1970, there definitely was a spike because on an annual basis,
it looked like there were 80 shooting.
Actually, no, in a decade's time span, it was probably about 80 shootings in the 1970s.
And then believe it or not, this is crazy, Corey.
After 2000, there have been 422 incidents where there have been school shootings,
whether it be in an elementary school, a high school, or even universities.
But there's definitely a big spike after 2010 because between 2000 and 2009,
there were only 80 incidents.
Between 2010 and 2019, there were 210 incidents.
So we're already at 132 incidents in the United States or since 2020.
So it's really not getting any better.
I mean, other than, you know, I know that we're really addressing mental health these days,
but do you have any insights from a law enforcement perspective
on how many shootings are occurring in the United States?
I 100% think it's a mental health issue.
I mean, the guns have always been here, realistically,
but people's mentality has definitely started to shift.
I mean, I'm noticing it within our county ourselves,
but it's definitely a mental health issue.
I think.
Right.
Well, today we're talking about the Virginia Tech Massacre,
where unfortunately 32 people died in a span of somewhere around three and a half hours
on April 16th, 2007.
I'm going to really try to stick to the facts and be as respectful as I can
because one thing, Corey, that I've learned since beginning Dine to Be Found is that
I completely have to give victims a name and a voice.
Now there are 32 victims.
So for time purposes, I probably won't be able to name all of those off,
but I will definitely make sure that we put those into the show notes
because there are a lot of different not-for-profits or even annual events
that always commemorate the victims here.
So just bear with me.
Yeah, that's a lot of victims and that's a very long time for an active shooter to be going on.
I mean, that one in Nashville, I mean, they did a spectacular job.
From the point that the first officer arrived on scene,
there was three minutes from that point to the point where the shooter was put down.
Wow.
I mean, that's incredible.
Three minutes.
It's like 316 or something like that, but that's incredible.
They did a phenomenal job.
Yes.
But three and a half hours is insane.
Yeah, absolutely, especially because, I mean, some of the times it was still relatively new.
I mean, we're just talking about the first part of the millennium.
So mental health issues weren't really being addressed at the time.
It's just crazy how this all went down.
So what I'm going to do is I'm going to actually give you a timeline
of how everything started and basically how it ended up.
At 715 in the morning, shots rang out across the Virginia Polytechnic Institute
and State University campus in Blacksburg, Virginia.
Now, we know this today, Corey, as Virginia Tech.
One female freshman and a male resident inside the West Ambler Johnston Hall dormitory
on the Virginia Tech campus had just been killed by Sung Wee Cho,
a 23-year-old senior and English major who was attending the university.
Pretty early for him to be getting up in the morning to do this.
Yeah, he had his clock set, that's for sure.
Emily Hilscher had just been dropped off at her dorm at 7.02 a.m.
according to her access card where she had swiped to get into the building.
Ryan Clark was a resident assistant in the dorm.
And basically, Corey, if you don't know what a resident assistant is,
it's basically the head resident on a hall
that's kind of in charge of all the residents there.
They do answer to the university as far as the goings on in the building
and things like that.
And they usually have one resident assistant per floor or at least per wing.
So Ryan Clark was the resident assistant there.
And he had heard some gunshots at that 7 o'clock hour.
So when he ran out into the hall to investigate, unfortunately, Corey, he was killed.
So this is for the listeners.
If you hear gunshots and if you're not armed, don't investigate that.
Just hunker down, call 911 immediately.
If you're armed, in my opinion, the right thing to do is go towards the gun front.
Go towards the gunfire and eliminate that issue.
But there are other alternatives such as bunkering down.
If you've got other people in there and you can always hold security.
But then you're just protecting the people within the room and others might be harmed.
But if you're not armed, don't investigate.
Just hunker down, lock the doors, call 911.
Yeah, and be quiet.
Be quiet.
Yeah, don't make a noise.
Between 720 and 725, Cho used his access card to return to his own dorm room to change clothes.
While he was there, Corey, he deleted emails and his university account.
Plus, he removed his computer hard drive before heading out onto the campus.
So all while these gunshots were being reported, the police arrived to find Emily and Ryan deceased.
During this time frame, Cho also accesses his Virginia Tech account and erases all the files.
So he was in a different building at this point in time and all the activity is going on at the dorm
where the two people had just been shot.
He's already out of sight.
Now, by 940 a.m., Cho made his way over to Norris Hall,
which is the building that held engineering science and mechanics courses.
Oh, goodness, Corey.
Fair warning, classes were in session.
Cho carried a 22 caliber handgun that he had purchased online on February 9th.
And he had a 9 millimeter handgun that he had just purchased in March.
All this occurred again in April.
So obviously he had a plan from the get go.
He made sure all the serial numbers were also filed down before he began his shooting spree.
OK, I'm surprised he used just pistols, really.
I mean, actually, he had some knives on him as well.
He carried two knives, but he also had plenty of ammunition
because he carried 400 rounds with him as he made his way through the campus.
That's a lot of ammunition.
It's a good bit, especially with, yeah, with pistols.
That's definitely a lot of ammo.
But it also 22.
I'm sure most of it was 22 caliber because they're tiny, tiny rounds.
So you can you can carry a box of them.
That's probably three by four inches that'll hold like 100 rounds in it.
Yeah, it's about the size of a box that you would have staples in.
Well, as he arrived at Norris Hall, Cho proceeded to chain and lock
many of the doors before making his way to the second floor.
And I will say this.
Oh, gosh, Corey, I remember when this was on the news
and that was just one of the most astounding things is that he took the time
to chain the exits so that nobody could leave the building.
One student who was there the morning of April 16th stated that they remember Cho
peeking into his classroom two times, which he found odd because surely a student at this time
is April now, he's probably been in school at least since August.
Nobody is going to be lost at this point of the school year.
So he thought that was rather odd of somebody just peeking in.
I mean, I'm imagining that this might be where Cho is probably
making the decision on if he was going to go through this plan or not.
It's probably a good bit of that.
I mean, there's there's going to be a whole lot of adrenaline with that.
So he's really got to commit or there could there's a possibility that he could have been
looking for the room with the most amount of people.
Yeah.
So it's probably a little bit of both.
But yeah, he's definitely trying to psych himself up because that's a heavy decision to make.
Absolutely.
Well, he made the decision because as Cho proceeded to move from room to room,
he did begin shooting as many people as he could find along his path.
Over a dozen people were wounded during Cho's rampage, but 25 students and five
faculty members were not as fortunate.
None of those victims survived.
That's a lot, especially with pistols.
It is.
Now for the next 10 to 12 minutes and oh gosh, that just doesn't seem like a ton of time here,
but when you're thinking about it, the next 10 to 12 minutes,
Corey Cho zigzagged between classrooms specifically to room 206 and 207.
And here's where he went up and down the aisles of desks and killed everyone in his path.
At 12 minutes, it must have seemed like an eternity.
Well, I'll tell you this, though.
There were students in room 205 that heard the gunfire and knew what it was that they
were listening to. They took immediate action, Corey, and they worked together to fight back
despite the maniacal laughter that they heard as Cho made his way through the building.
Could you just imagine that? Just hear the gunfire.
You hear this guy laughing hysterically, making his way through the building.
Yeah, that's haunting. But I'll say the students that fought back are heroes.
That takes a lot of bravery, especially if you're not armed.
That's incredible that they did that.
100%. Well, those students created a barricade between Cho and themselves as they shoved tables
up against the doorways leading into their classroom. So I'm imagining all this.
They're just taking tables and they're pushing it up against the door.
Witnesses reported to CNN that Cho attempted to enter that room by kicking in the door and
jiggling the door handle. That to me is just one of those things that you would see in a movie,
jiggling the door handle. But he was not able to get in because those classmates were really
pushing those tables hard to keep him out. Yeah, just death on the other side.
Yeah. So bravo to them. That did not stop Cho, Corey, because after the students shoved the
table against the door to keep him out, Cho fired through the door in the hopes of killing someone,
anyone who was standing against that door. One of the professors, a Holocaust survivor,
was standing there trying to keep Cho from entering the room. Unfortunately,
Corey, he did not survive. People inside room 211 also heard the gunshots and called 911.
The room was barricaded, but Cho did manage his way inside. And Cho did the same thing as before.
He walked up and down several rows of desks while gunning people down. You know, that's a fear of
mine is that that is going to happen in our building. And I mean, it doesn't have to be
just a school, Corey, because in Metro Atlanta, there was just a shooting at a hospital. And
I mean, you just don't know. Yep. You never know. You always have to be vigilant,
even if you're not somebody that believes in carrying a firearm. You need to at the very
least be vigilant. Be aware of your surroundings because that'll prevent you from becoming a victim.
Absolutely. And have an escape plan if you can. Well, three people in that room,
211 who were shot, they ended up playing dead and they survived. You hear that a lot too,
is even if you do get shot, I know it's going to be painful, but play dead. And that is how
a lot of people survive. Yeah. In that situation, that may be your best bet. And
certainly you fight back, but that's a massive risk also. Yeah. Either way, I think it just depends
on who the perpetrator is too and what their goals are or what their mentality is. You just,
I mean, you can't, you can't read their minds and I'm sure they're very unpredictable.
For lack of better words, Corey Cho completed his mission to do as much damage as he could before
turning the gun on himself and completing suicide. He did so just as police entered the building and
made their way up to the second floor. The shooting rampage lasted a total of 11 minutes.
Cho fired 174 rounds of ammunition in this time period. He killed 30 people and wounded 17 more
while six others received injuries after attempting to jump out the windows. Remember those main doors
had been chained shut. So this, the initial shots were at 7 15. Yep. 7 15 in the morning.
And this was a little after nine, correct? So what were the police doing? Why did it take them so
long to make entry? I mean, I know that it's chained, but I would assume in 2007 they would
have a ramp to get into the facility. I mean, so interesting that you say that. Yeah, there is
definitely a little bit of downtime between the time that he went to the first dorm and killed
those two students before he made his way over to the hall where classes were in session. What
happened, Corey, is that because the two victims in the dorm had been shot, the police were really
focusing their time and efforts on just those two victims. Because remember everything was quiet
after the two shootings. First thing in the morning, everything got quiet. Cho was in his room
erasing his hard drive. He was deleting emails and things like that. Police originally thought
that this had something to do with one of the two people or both people that had gotten killed in
the dorm room. They specifically looked at Emily Hillshure's boyfriend because they originally
thought it was a domestic situation. Yeah, I see where they're going with that. I don't really like
to armchair quarterback, but I don't think that was the correct way to handle that. Okay. So let
me talk about that downtime where things were quiet because police are over on another part of
the campus investigating a shooting, thinking that it was a domestic dispute. So let me tell you what
happened in that two and a half hour timeframe. Two days after the mass shooting on April 18th,
2007, this is two days after Cho went through on his rampage on campus. NBC News in New York
received a package from Cho. The package was incorrectly addressed. That's why it probably
took two days to get to New York. And that could have been why there was a delivery delay. The
timestamp on the front of the package confirmed that Cho had mailed the package in between killing
the two people at 7.15 in the morning and going to the education building. So he was definitely
completing some chores. He was doing everything he was doing in his own dorm room. And then he
made a pit stop to the post office. That's crazy. Doing that and then going about your ways. I just
said it's a mindset that I cannot understand. Yeah, I get it. When the package was examined,
investigators discovered a manifesto of sorts showing that Cho had planned his attack for
quite some time. And I had mentioned he had bought some handguns at least two months in advance.
The package included several photographs of Cho posing with guns. There was a videotape with Cho
ranting and raving about wealthy snobs and brats and how he was being picked on. He even referenced
Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, the two students responsible for Columbine. So interesting that
you said that earlier. Yeah, there's a lot of related factors with a lot of these shootings.
There's a lot of things that, yeah, it's common trends that you see with them. It's a big reason
why I think it's a mental health issue. Yeah. And then do you think too that it's a copycat?
Oh yeah, 100%. So they are talking about releasing the manifesto for the Nashville
shooting that just happened. And the reason why they're saying that they haven't released it yet
is because they don't want any copycat killers. Because a lot of these guys look up to the
other ones, the previous ones, and they try to outdo them and whatnot. Well, I mean, in today's
day and age, I think that we definitely are a lot more educated on how these things need to be
approached. But in the meantime, as far as Cho was concerned, there was no motive for the Virginia
Tech shootings that were evident inside the videotape. Investigators, they really do not
believe that Cho was targeting anyone in particular. It was just whoever was in his path that day.
I want to give you a brief background on who Sung-Wi Cho is. He was born in 1984 and moved to
America with his family from South Korea in 1992 when he was eight years old. Because, Corey,
why do people move to America? Better opportunity. Absolutely. His parents were hoping that he and
his sister would get a better education. Growing up, Cho was extremely shy and socially withdrawn,
which his parents actually recognized and were very concerned about. They believed that when Cho was
just three years old, he was traumatized by a medical procedure that contributed to his social
anxiety. I'm not really sure what that was, Corey, but I get it. Cho was later diagnosed with selective
mutism. I don't know if you've ever heard of that. You really just kind of choose when you're going
to talk and when you're not. He also had major depression and was placed on medication at a young
age. When Cho was in grade seven, two students entered a high school in Columbine, Colorado,
and killed 15 people, including themselves. They injured 24 more. A year later, after this event,
Cho wrote a paper for his eighth grade English class, Corey, referencing the Columbine shootings
and stating that he wanted to repeat this incident. Okay. Why did the teacher not tell the parents?
That's a huge issue. That needs to be addressed ASAP. That's falling on the adults at that point.
Yeah. It sounds like the parents at least knew that he had some issues and they were
attempting to seek help on his behalf. But yeah, if I were to read that, obviously this is
15 years later, but- Still, that's showing he's got a pattern at a very early age.
How old are you when you're in grade eight? 13? Just early teens. That's definitely a time
changing life events happen during that time period. But yeah, that to me is a big red flag.
If you're an English teacher and you're reading something like that, I'd be contacting parents,
the administrators, all sorts of people. Yeah. When I was that age, I was just trying to be like
Travis Pastrana. I didn't want to hurt anybody. I just wanted to have fun and do crazy stuff.
Years later, when Cho moved on to the University of Virginia Tech campus, he continued to be
described as a loner with some significant mental health problems and he was a social recluse. So
nothing's really changed. I mean, his parents described him as that when he was younger and
he just grew up, got taller and did the same thing. He always wore sunglasses indoors and
pulled his cap over his eyes. He spoke in low tones and hesitated before responding to
many conversations. In 2005, when Cho would have been a second year student, he was held briefly
at a psychiatric facility when he did express his thoughts of suicide to one of his roommates.
His roommate went and reported, which was a good thing in my opinion. I mean, he was given help.
Cho was ordered to seek outpatient care after he was diagnosed with a mood disorder. And it was at
this time that the courts did consider Cho to be a danger to himself, but he did not convey any
outwardly homicidal thoughts. Clearly he has some mental health issues. His roommate was insightful
enough to make a report on that. He got some treatment. He was ordered to have outpatient
treatment, but Corey, as many incidents that we talk about here on Dying to be Found, Cho kind of
fell through the cracks here. Nobody followed up on his outpatient treatment. So what his roommate
did was exactly what you need to do in this situation. This is for the listeners also.
If you recognize something is off, if they say something like having homicidal thoughts,
suicidal thoughts, that needs to be reported because too many times with these active shooters,
you'll see that they had said things to people before and it never went reported. They don't
take it seriously. Yeah. Because you think they're joking. Yeah. That needs to be reported all the
time. If anything, it's creating a paper trail. Oh yeah. Absolutely. Now I will tell you this,
speaking of paper trail, there are some patterns going on here because at Virginia Tech, one of
Cho's previous professors who was later interviewed also became concerned when she worked with Cho
one-on-one and was quite disturbed by his written assignments, kind of going back to middle school
there, but obviously still continuing on by the time he reached his university level. Although
nothing seemed forthcoming immediately, Cho did have a tendency to write in a style with
underlying threats. And I'll give you an example here. There was one assignment where Cho had
written about a 13 year old boy who accused his father of molesting him, which ended in the boy
completing suicide. So I don't know if this is diary style or there's no concrete evidence that
he was abused. He was sexually abused as a young boy, but clearly he is writing it all down for
people to read. I mean, is this a cry for help? I mean, it could be. It could just be him writing
down the fantasy. You can never tell with people with these mental issues like this. So true.
A second play that Cho wrote included a conversation where several high school students
confront an abusive teacher. I'm not sure that this one would go over in today's school system
again, but Cory, this was quite some time ago. Like you said, it could be fantasy. It could be
a cry for help, but we'll never know. In the second playwright, Cho wrote, quote, I want to kill him.
I want to watch him bleed like the way he made us kids bleed, unquote. Well, that's a red flag.
Yeah. That's definitely a fantasy. 100%. Yeah. Definitely some alarm bells going off here. Yeah.
All right. Well, that's enough time that I'm going to spend on Cho. I will say that he didn't just
mail a package off to NBC News in New York. He also left a note in his dorm room and inside that
note, he ended with the phrase, quote, you caused me to do this, unquote. And I'm not sure who you
are, but he did just say that somebody caused him to do this. All right. I'm going to give you a small
timeline of events provided by CNN that Virginia Tech officials took part in after that package
arrived at NBC News on April 18th, 2007. School officials sent out an email at 9.26 AM. This is
two hours and 15 minutes after the shooting, first thing in the morning at the Ambler Johnston Hall
and where the two students had gotten killed. They sent out an email at 9.26 AM, kind of warning
students, hey, you might want to stay in your dorm rooms or just keep a watchful eye out. At 9.45 AM,
a 911 call comes in to report the shootings at the Norris Hall for engineering and mechanics.
At 9.50 AM, Virginia Tech officials send out another mass email telling all students to,
quote, please stay put, unquote. A second email followed warning students that a gunman was
loose on the campus. At 9.55 AM, Virginia Tech students received a third email to warn them
of the shootings over at the Norris Hall. At 10.16 AM, all classes were canceled. At 12.42 PM,
students and faculty were released from campus and classes and classes were all canceled for
the next day. All right, pause here for just a second here, Corey. For our listeners, I specifically
give my son Corey stories that he can give us some insights here on law enforcement perspectives.
And Corey, you had just mentioned the Nashville one and what a phenomenal job that they have recently
done. So you've had some SWOT training here and I kind of want to see what your thoughts are on how
things could be handled in this situation because I'm not hearing a lot about law enforcement's
involvement here in any of these events that are happening on campus. So what are your thoughts on
that? Okay, so law enforcement has come a very long way since 2007, but after the very first
shootings, higher-ups would have definitely been alerted, especially if the guy is not
tracked down yet. Every K-9 guy that we have is going to be on scene. Our SWOT team would start
getting texts and phone calls. I'm sure that we would get a helicopter from State Patrol to
patrol the area. We would be doing everything in our power to find this guy. Once the second
shooting would have happened, we would have been able to find out pretty quick where it's coming
from because it's hard to conceal gunfire. Once that gunfire is heard, we have to move as fast
as physically possible. If you go back and watch the Nashville body cams, what they're doing is
once they make entry, they hadn't heard any gunfire recently. They just have a general idea of where
the shooter is at, and they're slowly clearing every room as they push forward. But once they
hear gunfire, they just start pushing. And that's what exactly you need to do is go directly to that
gunfire. He shouldn't have had an opportunity to go room to room to room because that's a very long
timeframe. It is, and it all happened in 11 minutes. Now remember how I had told you, though, police
did actually enter the building and were making their way up to the second floor towards those
shots, but 10 minutes had gone by. So yeah, that's a tremendous amount of damage. I mean, once you're
in the building and you're hearing gunshots, it shouldn't take 10 minutes to get there. But at the
same time, they didn't have that kind of training like we do now. Today, we really emphasize on
active shooter stuff because it's so big now. We'll train with buses. We learn the ins and outs of
how the buses work, how to open all the doors and everything. And San Luis schools and churches, we
have training every year. We get volunteers that either attend the church or work at the school.
They'll come and play as role players and we'll have simulation rounds, which is basically like
paintball. And we're given an active shooter situation and we just run through them and
practice on how we react on everything. Oh, that's intense. I've been in a practice
lockdown of sorts and I knew it was a simulation, but I mean, it gave me a panic attack and it
wasn't even a real thing. Yeah. I mean, you never know. I mean, even whatever you're training, it's
good to try to simulate that feeling that you're going to have. So it's at least now you have a
better idea how you'll react. Yeah, I'll cry. I'm sure most people will. All right. For all
intense purposes, I do want to let you know that Sung Wee Cho was never identified as the shooter
until the day after the shooting, Corey. Virginia Tech officials made a statement that the reason
they never canceled classes earlier in the morning when everything occurred was because they believed
it was that domestic dispute that I had told you about earlier. Virginia Tech was fined an undisclosed
amount of money by the department of education for failing to issue a prompt campus wide warning
after Cho initially killed the two coeds at 7.15 on the morning of April 16th. And I will say this,
they did not know that he was the active shooter because I had told you that he had committed
suicide and he was amongst the victims. They saw the gun laying by him and just assumed that he
was probably just another victim until they got the gun and got his fingerprints. Yeah. I see
the direction they were going, but I mean, clearly there's not a whole lot of information on the law
enforcement reaction. So I'm not really sure what led them to believe it was the boyfriend directly.
So that's why I don't like to armchair quarterback with law enforcement stuff,
because you never really know exactly how things played out from their side. Exactly. In 2008,
families from the Virginia Tech shootings agreed to an 11 million US dollar settlement, which is
said to have covered survivors' medical expenses, plus compensate families who lost a loved one. To
me, that's not a ton of money. Any family who accepted the settlement gave up any rights to
sue Virginia Tech, the state or any other local government in connection to the case. It's unclear
how many families agreed to the settlement, but just know that $11 million distributed amongst
32 victims and numerous wounded people. That is to me, not a ton of money. I'm willing to bet that
didn't cover a lot of medical bills and funerals. It took another two years before Norris Hall was
reopened on the Virginia Tech campus. On April 10th, 2009, Norris Hall took on a new role by
housing the Center for Peace Studies and Violence Prevention. The original engineering science and
mechanics courses were relocated to another area on the Virginia Tech campus. I mean, I can kind
of see that. If you're brave enough to go back and continue on with your education there, I think that
that was probably wise for them to move the area that you're going to be making your studies, you
know? Yeah. Yeah. I wouldn't want to go in there, especially if you're a survivor and you got to see
that. That's going to trigger some PTSD right there. I don't know, Corey, if you were wondering
if Virginia Tech was held responsible in any other way for this massacre. And the answer is actually
yes. As it turns out, Cho was known for writing those angry and or violent papers for class
assignments, which at one point had grown to cause concern amongst faculty members and even students.
Apparently, Cho had written at least two scripts of some plays that he was assigned to write for
his English class, which reflected violence that someone should have taken note of. The problem here,
though, is that no one reported Cho to administrators or authorities before he went on his early morning
rampage on April 16th. I mean, I certainly think that people need to be held accounted for with
not reporting his behavior. But then, I mean, look at horror movies, the sick and twisted stuff that
people would put in there, the writers of that stuff. It's probably pretty dang similar, if you
think about it. Yeah. So that could easily be a defense for him. Absolutely. Mental health services
on the Virginia Tech campus also came into question because medical staff has stated that they were
unaware of the outpatient treatment that Cho was ordered back in 2005. I had mentioned that nobody
followed up on that. So mental health services were also questioned. According to the Clary Act of 1990,
US colleges and universities are required to disclose any known crimes to faculty, staff,
and students that occur near any college or university campus that receives federal financial
aid. This act was put in place after Jean Clary, a 19-year-old woman, was raped and murdered on her
university campus in 1986. Her attack went unreported for quite some time, along with 38 other
incidents at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, where she attended. Good Lord.
I know, right? Yeah, that's ridiculous. Various lawsuits were filed from wrongful death to failing
to notify students early enough. Virginia Tech eventually paid fines in the amount of $32,500
to the Department of Education in violation of the Clary Act. Let me say that again,
Corey. $32,000. That's nothing to them. That's pocket change to a university. How much money they
pull in at universities. It's insane. That's a pretty big school too, isn't it? Yeah, it's pretty
big. That's nothing to them. Nope. Well, I think for time purposes, I don't have a lot of time to
go through the list of victims, so I will place those in our show notes. And Corey, that is the
story of the Virginia Tech massacre. I will tell you this, because we don't have a lot of time to
put those names into this episode. I did find a really good website called weremember.vt.edu
that commemorates the 32 victims. And the one neat thing that I saw too, Corey, is that they do hold
all sorts of events throughout the entire year, like an expression of remembrance. They do
candlelight ceremonies. They do 5K runs. And I mean, so much more. And it's not just in Virginia.
They have annual events in Delaware, Colorado, Illinois, North Carolina, South Carolina,
and Virginia. So again, I'll go ahead and link those notes. But yeah, so that is the story of
the Virginia Tech massacre of 2007. Texas just passed a bill where they're going to start hiring
veterans to be security guards within schools now that are paid by the schools. Oh, good. They're
armed. As of right now, I think they just have handguns. They'll be plain clothed so they won't
look, you know, the whole military look. Yeah, that's great. In Texas, you said? Yes, in Texas.
Awesome. They need to have ARs because most of these school shooters are using rifles. Because,
I mean, in all reality, a pistol is not... You're going to lose that gunfight any day of the week.
And there are ways for them to be able to conceal that a lot better, because I wouldn't want them
walking around with rifles all day anyways. But there are ways around that. Yeah, absolutely.
These guns aren't going away. There's more guns than people in America. Whether or not you like
that, best bet is to act defensively, make plans, and then we can work on this mental issue.
Absolutely. Well said, Cory. I think that's our teachable moment today.
Do you have one? I mean, I've got plenty. Do you want to do the teachable moment? I've got one,
but based on our conversation, I'm not sure that you might even correct me on this.
No, that's serious. I say fight back.
I agree, completely. I know it's terrifying, and you really don't know how you're going to react
in that situation. No one truly does until they're put in that kind of situation. But fighting back
is the best way to solve it, because otherwise, I mean, I know it's scary. I know you might get hurt.
I know you might get killed, but that's a risk that you have to take, because otherwise, several
other people are going to get killed. There's no reason why 32 people should have been killed.
I know that several students did fight back or at least defend themselves, but there are ways that
he could have been taken down. It's your duty as a citizen of the country to protect the others
around you. Yeah. I mean, look, there's more of you than that. There's one gunman. There's going to be 30 of y'all.
Yeah. I mean, what comes to mind to me here is the Pennsylvania Flight 93,
where passengers stood up against the hijackers during 9-11. Let's roll.
Yeah. I went to a safety course several years ago, Cory. I think maybe when I first moved back to
Georgia, but they did tell us to fight back if you can. I mean, gosh, if you're in the middle of
Walmart and you're on the toilet paper, I'll throw those big old containers of toilet paper at the
perpetrator. Just do everything that you can. You definitely want to get out of danger's way, but
yeah, you're right. Force in numbers, like you said. All right. Well, I guess between you and me,
we got a teachable moment out today. Good. I hope that helps people. Hopefully, they never have to use it,
not for bed. Absolutely. All right, Cory, thanks for helping me out with this episode of Dying
to be Found. Yeah. Yeah, that was a good one. If any of our listeners have any more insights on
the Virginia Tech shootings, please DM us on Instagram. Okay. Talk to you next week.
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