Opinions differed on Cho’s dangerousness

The last time the Virginia Tech mental-health center apparently saw Seung-Hui Cho was the day after a magistrate ordered him detained as a potential danger to himself and others.

But it was the same day that another legal official agreed there were “alternatives to involuntary hospitalization.“

Records released yesterday indicate that although Cho was ordered to receive outpatient treatment, he last was seen at the Cook Counseling Center on Dec. 14, 2005, after a night in a psychiatric hospital and more than a year before he killed 32 people and himself.

Both a counselor at the campus-based Cook center and a psychiatrist at the Carilion New River Valley Medical Center concluded that same day that although Cho appeared to be troubled, he did not seem to be a danger to himself or others.

In the center’s triage report, a counselor wrote that Cho denied suicidal or homicidal thoughts and that comments he had made earlier to a roommate that he might harm himself were “a joke.“

Cho’s discharge papers indicated he appeared to have had a mood disorder, but “essentially it does not appear that he had any serious intent when he made the suicidal statement.“ He was seen at Carilion by Dr. Jasdeep Miglani, a psychiatrist.

“It appears to be more an act of frustration . . . he seems to be remorseful and apologetic,“ the report said.

The assessments are found among hospital discharge records, handwritten reports, e-mails and other material that were released yesterday after Cho’s family waived privacy rights.

Much of it was discovered only recently. Robert Miller, a former director of the Cook Counseling Center, said last month that he found records among personal papers he had packed when he left the center in February 2006.

In a statement yesterday, Gov. Timothy M. Kaine said: “We will never fully comprehend what led Seung-Hui Cho to carry out his assault on his fellow students and instructors.

“His actions were by nature inexplicable, and I don’t expect the questions surrounding the tragedy will ever really end.“

A Virginia Tech statement said: “These records indicate that the professional staff of Cook Counseling Center acted appropriately in their evaluation of Cho, documented the interactions and offered to provide treatment to him while he was enrolled at Virginia Tech.“

“The unavailability of pertinent counseling center records during more than two years of investigation and review has created needless uncertainty and understandable speculation that has compounded the suffering of the survivors, families and the Virginia Tech community.“

Lori Haas of Richmond, the mother of a wounded student, said she saw little that was new in the material released yesterday.

Haas is a critic of the report issued by Kaine’s special panel that investigated the massacre, and she disagreed with parts of the statements yesterday from Kaine and Tech.

“I suspect we will never really know Cho’s motive, and the families know all too well what Cho did. We live [with] it every day. But there are many unanswered questions . . . who said what, who knew what, when,“ she said.

Answering those questions might save lives on another campus some day, Haas said.

As for the actions of the Cook center, she said: “I don’t think it is an example of professionalism in the least. He was a young man crying, crying, crying for help, and nobody helped him.“

On April 16, 2007, Cho committed the worst mass shooting in modern U.S. history by killing 32 students and faculty members.

In the fall of 2005, his behavior grew annoying to those around him, and he spoke by phone with a counselor at Cook on Nov. 30.

Three female students complained of unwanted and bothersome contact from Cho that fall, and two of them notified campus police. After a warning visit from police, Cho called the counseling center and spoke to a counselor Dec. 12 but failed to keep an appointment.

The next day, after a suitemate heard Cho express what he took to be a suicidal impulse, police had someone with the New River Valley Community Services Board evaluate him.

Cho, under a magistrate’s order, spent the night of Dec. 13, 2005, at a psychiatric hospital. The next day, a licensed clinical psychologist examined him and said he believed Cho was mentally ill but did not pose an imminent danger to himself or others and did not require involuntary hospitalization.

A special justice in Christiansburg, after hearing medical testimony, found Cho presented “an imminent danger to himself as a result of mental illness” but that “the alternatives to involuntary hospitalization and treatment were investigated and were deemed suitable.“

The counselor at Cook who saw Cho later that day made an “X” over an entire page of Cho’s triage report, noting: “Did not assess—student has had 2 previous triages in past 2 wks—last two days ago.“

On Dec. 14, 2005, the last time Cho was seen at Cook, the counselor encouraged Cho to return in January, but no appointment was scheduled “because he doesn’t know his schedule.“