Wednesday, April 18, 2007
Thoughts on what could have been done
It's not as if I, or any of us, have all the facts, but here's some of what I think.
After the first incident where Cho killed Emily and Ryan, the police could legitimately have thought Emily's boyfriend was responsible. He was said to own guns and, anyway, the "common wisdom" is that significant others are usually responsible. It's also not unreasonable that they thought the chaos was over. Nor would it have been unreasonable for them not to issue an immediate campus-wide alert since they thought it was over and done with.
It does seems evident, however, that the university failed to exercise responsibility about Cho in the couple of years beforehand. Several adult and thoughtful people had identified him to administration as disturbed and disturbing. These are people who welcome and even champion eccentricity and individuality, but they said that Cho wasn't 'merely' weird. He was actually disturbed and probably dangerous. After all, he had set a fire in a dorm, written extraordinarily violent narratives in at least two plays and several poems, been so odd in one of magnificent poet Nikki Giovanni's classes that over sixty students dropped the class, took photos of girls under the desks, alarmed novelist and teacher Lucinda Roy to such an extent that she met with him individually rather than in a class but then only with verbal safeguards for calling security, been prescribed anti-depressant medication, and more.
A university is, to some extent, in loco parentis and, as such, is enjoined to educate as well as to guard its community. Security personnel should have had him on a "keep your eyes on" list. Loudspeakers should have been available all over the campus for extremely rare moments when instant action is necessary. Surveillance cameras should have been installed at entrances to all buildings, with someone monitoring them at all times, so they could have noticed someone with ammunition strapped to his body entering a building and so they could have put the building and campus on immediate alert and locked the doors.
A university must have rules and requirements. Freedom of expression and even physical freedom must be cherished but so must there must be ways to identify, treat and remove a person who is demonstrably dangerous, as Cho seems to have been. That is not an abnegation of personal freedom because freedom is not the same as license. A university must not be a place in which life and liberty are lost while license masquerades as individuality.
After the first incident where Cho killed Emily and Ryan, the police could legitimately have thought Emily's boyfriend was responsible. He was said to own guns and, anyway, the "common wisdom" is that significant others are usually responsible. It's also not unreasonable that they thought the chaos was over. Nor would it have been unreasonable for them not to issue an immediate campus-wide alert since they thought it was over and done with.
It does seems evident, however, that the university failed to exercise responsibility about Cho in the couple of years beforehand. Several adult and thoughtful people had identified him to administration as disturbed and disturbing. These are people who welcome and even champion eccentricity and individuality, but they said that Cho wasn't 'merely' weird. He was actually disturbed and probably dangerous. After all, he had set a fire in a dorm, written extraordinarily violent narratives in at least two plays and several poems, been so odd in one of magnificent poet Nikki Giovanni's classes that over sixty students dropped the class, took photos of girls under the desks, alarmed novelist and teacher Lucinda Roy to such an extent that she met with him individually rather than in a class but then only with verbal safeguards for calling security, been prescribed anti-depressant medication, and more.
A university is, to some extent, in loco parentis and, as such, is enjoined to educate as well as to guard its community. Security personnel should have had him on a "keep your eyes on" list. Loudspeakers should have been available all over the campus for extremely rare moments when instant action is necessary. Surveillance cameras should have been installed at entrances to all buildings, with someone monitoring them at all times, so they could have noticed someone with ammunition strapped to his body entering a building and so they could have put the building and campus on immediate alert and locked the doors.
A university must have rules and requirements. Freedom of expression and even physical freedom must be cherished but so must there must be ways to identify, treat and remove a person who is demonstrably dangerous, as Cho seems to have been. That is not an abnegation of personal freedom because freedom is not the same as license. A university must not be a place in which life and liberty are lost while license masquerades as individuality.
Labels: headlines, reflections
Permalink | 
| posted by jau at 9:04 AM
Dick Stanley — at 3:00 PM, April 18, 2007:
jau — at 4:29 PM, April 18, 2007:
Dick Stanley — at 7:06 PM, April 18, 2007:
jau — at 10:39 PM, April 18, 2007:
Dick Stanley — at 11:49 PM, April 18, 2007:
| posted by jau at 9:04 AM
7 more:
Dick Stanley — at 3:00 PM, April 18, 2007:
What you say about cameras and monitoring them and loudspeakers and locking doors sounds more like a prison than a university. Probably impossible. But it's obvious a lot of people were afraid of Mr. Cho, and so it's odd nothing was done. Perhaps they were afraid of being sued. A very real fear nowadays.
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jau — at 4:29 PM, April 18, 2007:
Dick S., don't you think you kind of expect a large university to have a way to watch over the people and/or to notify them of something urgent? I'm startled that all they had (or all they used, anyway) was email. I'd far prefer the occasional intrusion on my privacy, in public, to the risk of utterly miserable people being able to walk around with ammo strapped to their chests. Not you??
As to the oprah-fication of modern men, I don't see it as evidence of unconcern for women but as equality which is, essentially, a good thing. Perhaps we've gone too far on the pendulum swing away from "macho" so it'll take a while to swing back to balance. At least that's my optimistic hope.
As to the oprah-fication of modern men, I don't see it as evidence of unconcern for women but as equality which is, essentially, a good thing. Perhaps we've gone too far on the pendulum swing away from "macho" so it'll take a while to swing back to balance. At least that's my optimistic hope.
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Dick Stanley — at 7:06 PM, April 18, 2007:
I never expected the university I attended to protect me, no. For that matter, I don't know of any large university that has monitored cameras, loudspeakers scattered everywhere, and doors that lock automatically (or has detailed people to lock them when alerted by the loudspeakers). Do you? Is that how it's done in New York? I do think this notion too many of us seem to have of the institution (or the police or the government) protecting everyone is what leads to the passivity shown here. Only one elderly professor apparently had the courage to fight back. While his students were fleeing. Not one stayed to help him. That's shameful.
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jau — at 10:39 PM, April 18, 2007:
My siblings, children and I all attended colleges and universities with at least some degree of in loco parentis. Electronic swipe cards to enter dorms, names having to be written down when visiting the campus or dorms, intervention when students seemed upset or depressed, etc. And campus police or sirens available to sound alerts if necessary. These weren't small schools.
Shouldn't the psychiatric evaluation have kicked out in the background check when he bought his guns??
Authority figures have just got to act like adults and not fear for lawsuits. Maybe determination to remove and/or help people with major problems will be a salutory effect of all this?
Shouldn't the psychiatric evaluation have kicked out in the background check when he bought his guns??
Authority figures have just got to act like adults and not fear for lawsuits. Maybe determination to remove and/or help people with major problems will be a salutory effect of all this?
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Dick Stanley — at 11:49 PM, April 18, 2007:
Maybe, but I wouldn't count on it. When you elect to remove someone you take responsibility and open yourself to a lawsuit from him/her or their relatives. I don't know how gun laws work, because the guns I own I had long before the laws were passed. I have to show my driver's license to buy ammunition, but they don't ask to see my medical history. All the laws do, anyway, as far as I can see, is disarm the law abiding. Dope is illegal, too, but all that's done is raise the price. The minimal security you mention I've seen at U's, though not the police siren alert. Tornado sirens down here don't work well. Nobody can remember what they mean. The in loco parentis idea is interesting. It's tempting for us parents to talk about college "kids," but they're not kids at all. No one over 18 is a kid in most of the world's cultures, and we do ours no favors treating them so.
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What a tragic and painful lesson from hindsight.
What you said made a lot of sense.
I read too that his classmates were afraid to review his plays in class - planning carefully the words they would say, in case he snapped.
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