Virginia Tech victims’ families learn more on school’s reaction

Updated: 11:03 p.m.

BLACKSBURG — A top Virginia Tech official warned her son about the first shootings of last year’s massacre before the university issued any general alert.

That was one of several new or changing bits of information about the April 16, 2007, shootings that families of the dead learned today in their first group meeting with top Tech officials. The rampage by Tech senior Seung-Hui Cho killed 32.

Among other disclosures:

—University President Charles W. Steger now says the earliest he heard police had a “person of interest” in the first two shootings that day was at 8:40 a.m. — much later than a state investigation panel report has suggested.

—Steger told families that the first report he had from police was that the first two deaths, at West Ambler Johnston Hall, stemmed from a domestic dispute. That contradicts the panel report and what University Police Chief Wendell Flinchum told families at briefings earlier in the month, when he said he told Steger there was no gun at the crime scene. That meant the shooter had taken the gun with him.

—The policy group of top officials who were supposed to decide how to respond to the first two shootings were moving in and out of the meeting room, often leaving it to make cell-phone calls, in what family members said sounded like a confused, disorganized session. One of those calls, by Kim O’Rourke, Steger’s chief of staff, was to her son about 9:15 or 9:20 a.m., telling him about the shooting and to be careful. The policy group sent its first e-mail about the shootings, after editing out a reference that one of the students died, at 9:26 a.m. The group sent its first notice that a gunman was at large at 9:50 a.m., about 10 minutes after Cho started gunning down people in Norris Hall, where 30 died.

“For Kim O’Rourke to say she gave her kid a heads-up about a shooting at 9:15 or 9:20 when my kid, our kids didn’t get any warning at all . . . “ said an upset Greg Gwaltney of Chesterfield County. His son, Matthew, died in Norris Hall.

O’Rourke also told the families that when she arrived on campus for the specially called policy group meeting, which began at 8:30 a.m., she was struck by how calm the campus was and thought the emergency already had been taken care of, family members said.

Steger’s statement that he first heard of a person of interest at 8:40 a.m. seems to confirm information from police briefings earlier this month that shows that the official timeline incorrectly said police and university officials believed, within a very short time after the West Ambler Johnston Hall shootings, that the gunman was off campus.

That mistaken belief was one reason they delayed issuing a warning.

Steger said today that the delay also was because of his desire to verify what had happened at West Ambler Johnston, which startled family members who wondered why he needed to verify information given by the police chief.

Flinchum had told families in briefings earlier this month that he told Steger about 8:10 a.m. that a student had died, another was injured, that there was no gun at the crime scene and that bloody footprints went down the hall to the stairs. Steger said today that Flinchum told him the shooting looked like a domestic dispute.

Flinchum today said he couldn’t remember whether he told Steger about the gun or the bloody footprints leading away from the room where Emily Hilscher and Ryan Clark were fatally shot, family members said. Steger was vague about his 8:10 a.m. phone conversation with Flinchum, they added.

“Chief Flinchum’s story shifted again,“ said Michael Pohle, whose son Michael, a graduate student, died in Norris Hall. The state panel last year found, after interviewing Flinchum, that he had told Steger in phone briefings beginning at 8:10 a.m. that the police had a good lead on a suspect.

“They’re dodging all the questions. It’s like an Abbott and Costello routine — you know: ‘Who’s on first?‘¤“ Pohle said.

In addition to questions about the policy group’s actions, families also asked how such a troubled young man could have escaped officials’ attention for so long. Families are concerned that Cho’s mental-health records at the university counseling center cannot be found.

“I think their answers are evasive,“ said Holly Adams Sherman, who left the meeting early. Sherman, whose daughter, Leslie, was killed in the shootings, said Tech officials didn’t address contradictions between what they told a state panel last year and what police told families earlier this month.

Family members said they are upset that Steger said he believed he did everything right that morning.

Tech officials didn’t respond to some questions. Nor did they respond when Marian Hammaren read from a note her only daughter, Caitlin, wrote earlier in the school year about her experience as a resident assistant. The student died in Norris Hall.

“¤‘So many of my experiences have involved situations that demanded life experience and strong interpersonal skills. Thus far, I foresee myself first and foremost as a Virginia Tech policy enforcer .¤.¤. adamant about ensuring the ultimate safety of my residents,“ Hammaren read, before adding: “My daughter, your 19-year-old employee, got it. I find it astounding that the life experiences of this administration did not.“

Today’s meeting, required under a settlement Virginia Tech reached this summer, marked the first time Tech officials met with victims’ families as a group. Officials met with some of the injured and their families Saturday, while today’s meeting was with families of the deceased.

Officials say Cho, armed with two weapons and more than 300 rounds of ammunition, randomly chose his victims and the locations where they were shot that morning. After killing the two students at West Ambler Johnston, he resurfaced at Norris Hall, where he killed 25 students and five faculty members and then shot himself as police closed in. Twenty-five students were seriously wounded but survived the shootings.

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BLACKSBURG, Va. (AP) - Families of those killed in the mass shootings at Virginia Tech last year met for more than six hours Sunday with university officials to ask questions about their response to the tragedy.
   
Sunday’s meeting came after officials met Saturday with some families of the two dozen people injured when student gunman Seung-Hui Cho killed 32 students and faculty members on April 16, 2007. The meetings were closed to reporters.
   
Holly Sherman, whose daughter Leslie was killed, said university President Charles Steger apologized for the fact that the shootings happened.

But she said he sidestepped a question about whether he took responsibility for them.
   
According to Sherman, Steger later said, “In retrospect, we all have regrets.“
   
The families’ meetings with the officials who determined the school’s response to the shootings that morning were part of an agreement reached with the state to avoid lawsuits.

They met earlier this month with police officials.
   
Some family members and a panel that investigated the shootings have said they thought the university should have warned the campus earlier of the first two killings in a dormitory.

No e-mail alert was sent out about the first shootings until about 15 minutes before Cho killed 30 people in a classroom building.

Those shootings came 2½ hours after the dormitory shootings.
   
Greg Gwaltney, whose son Matthew Gwaltney died, was upset that Steger told the parents he would not have done anything different, and called im “pompous.“
   
Sherman and another parent said officials gave answers to some questions about the first shootings that conflicted with their earlier statements.
   
The time that officials met to decide a course of action could not be pinned down, Sherman said.
   
Mike Pohle, whose son Michael Pohle Jr. was killed, said police and administrators gave different reports of what investigators found at the first crime scene, and what time officials thought they had a suspect.
   
“It’s a huge dance,“ Pohle said. “I think the term I’m going to coin is ‘convenient or strategic memory.“‘
   
Christian Hammaren, whose daughter Caitlin Hammaren died, was upset that officials apparently don’t always follow specific procedures for the campus response to emergencies.

The policy in force when the shootings occurred called for police to notify students and workers, he said, but it was handled by administrators.
   
A few of the group that Pohle estimated at more than 60 relatives of about 15 shooting victims left as the meeting dragged on into the night.

They asked about everything from Cho’s mental health and school records to administrators’ actions, the parents said.
   
University officials were in the meeting and not immediately available for comment.
   
Fred Cook, an injured student who was at the five-hour meeting Saturday, said he thought university officials tried “to be as open and honest as possible.“

But, he said, some of the families were not happy with the answers.
   
“Many parents are still angry with the administrators and the university and are asking questions there are no answers for,“ Cook said.

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Families of those who died in last year’s massacre at Virginia Tech began a meeting with university officials this afternoon to get answers to how authorities responded during the crisis.

The university promised relatives the meeting, its first formal sitdown with the families since the April 16, 2007 shooting, as part of this summer’s settlement with the famililes.

Family members say they’re concerned about the delay that morning in issuing a warning about a gunman on campus, as well as how little attention university officials paid to the troubled young man, Seung Hui Cho, who killed 32 students and faculty members.

The meeting is expected to last hours.