Head of Virginia Tech panel says he’s willing to correct errors in report

The head of a state panel that investigated the Virginia Tech massacre says he would be willing to fix any serious errors in the massive report, an action that some agitated parents of the dead and wounded are demanding.

But Col. Gerald Massengill, who headed the governor-appointed panel, said, “I don’t know if it really needs to be done. . . . If the governor feels it’s important enough to have an appendix, to get it straight, we would want to interview people involved, we would want to do things not available at the time.‘’

Massengill, a former Virginia State Police superintendent, said he sympathized with the parents who want the 300-page report to be accurate for history’s sake.

In places, the report is critical of Virginia Tech’s handling of the unfolding massacre of 32 students and teachers.

“But people have to realize that there won’t be any changes to its conclusions or the recommendations,‘’ Massengill said of the report.

Meanwhile, Gov. Timothy M. Kaine, who in two separate meetings over the weekend spoke with as many as 60 parents of the dead and wounded as well as wounded Tech students, said he would review any mistakes in the Massengill report brought to his attention.

The panel was convened to examine the events of April 16, 2007, in which Tech student Seung-Hui Cho shot and killed 32 students and teachers and wounded numerous other students, before killing himself.

Many parents of the dead and wounded are angry that Tech did not warn students earlier that the killer was on the loose. At the meetings with Kaine, some called for the firing of Tech President Charles W. Steger.