Were these 33 deaths at Virginia Tech Avoidable

 In the early 1990’s I served on a bank board of directors in Buffalo, New York. I was quite surprised at the enormous expense banks incur cooperating with one another to prevent credit card fraud and assuring quality service by ATMs. We had a senior bank executive who spent so much time in New York City working on one bank consortium or another; I thought he should move there. I was reminded of him recently.

Last month I was inside a gas station near my home buying a Diet Coke. A woman in front of me tried to buy two packs of cigarettes with three different credit cards. With unbelievable speed each of the credit cards was rejected by the issuing banks. The information encoded on the magnetic strip on the back of each credit card was transmitted to a computer somewhere and was rejected for one reason or another. The woman did not get her cigarettes and she angrily stormed out of the gas station. A $9.00 theft was prevented by advance planning that would have made her head spin.

U.S. Banks are committed to prevent credit card theft, make their ATMs provide extraordinary service and prevent them from inadvertently spewing twenty dollar bills. Are these systems perfect? Of course they are not. On the other hand, when was the last time you got a twenty dollar bill from an ATM you did not deserve or get shorted a twenty dollar bill you did deserve?

Almost beyond belief, a similar level of human intelligence is not assembled on a regular basis to develop highly reliable systems to prevent tragic events like the massacre at Virginia Tech.

On April 16 Seung-Hui Cho strolled around the Campus of Virginia Tech and killed 32 faculty members and students, wounded more than 20 others and then shot himself. This incident could have been prevented.

In December of 2005, Seung-Hui Cho was declared by a Virginia special justice to be “mentally ill and in need of hospitalization, and presents an imminent (sic) danger to self or others as a result of mental illness.” There are some reports that this information should have been reported to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System. There are other reports that the way the Virginia form for recording “mental defect” is published, there was no requirement to report Seung-Hui Cho to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System. In addition, only 22 states report individuals who are declared to be mentally ill and unsafe to themselves or others. State officials all across the country complain they do not have the resources or the computer technology to “efficiently or effectively” discharge their responsibility to report individuals that need reported to the National Background Check System.

Here we are weeks later and it is still unclear if Seung-Hui Cho should have been allowed to legally purchase weapons in Virginia. Purchase them he did. Roanoke Firearms owner John Markell said his shop sold the Glock, 9 mm hand gun and a box of practice ammo to Cho 36 days before the massacre for $571. Cho had also purchased a Walther, .22-caliber weapon from an out-of-state dealer. Mr. Markell thought Cho was a polite and nice young man. He was devastated to learn he had sold the more lethal of the two weapons. He will wakeup every morning for the rest of his life and wonder why he was not informed that Mr. Cho was a ticking time bomb.

Prominent faculty members at Virginia Tech reported Mr. Cho to University officials and expressed in clear language their concerns that Mr. Cho had serious problems and was potentially dangerous. On the morning of Mr. Cho’s rampage he lived in a dormitory suite with five other men who had their expressed concerns about Mr. Cho, but did not know that their reclusive roommate had been declared dangerous to himself or others and that responsible faculty members were seriously concerned that Mr. Cho might hurt himself or others.

I am no mental health professional, but these circumstances appear to be crazy.

I am not a gun control nut. Guns are so deeply ingrained in American culture that the notion that this could have been prevented by eliminating guns is naïve. But where was the consortium of mental health professionals, gun enthusiasts and academic leaders to assure that someone officially deemed “dangerous to himself or others” would not show up in a gun dealers shop and legally purchase a hand gun? No such consortium exists.

Mental health professionals worry about the “privacy rights” of patients. They should. Gun enthusiasts worry about having their guns taken away from them. That is not going to happen. University leaders, quite properly, have no interest in turning their campuses into communities of unnecessary fear and alarm. I do not see these groups working together on a basis that can truly make a difference.

President Bush appointed a commission to study the matter. The Governor of Virginia appointed a commission to study the matter. We did that after the massacre at Columbine High School.

Developing near flawless systems of any kind is hard work. It is tedious. People of honest endeavor frequently disagree during the process. So far, our society is more willing to prevent credit card fraud than it is to protect our youth and others from the occasional massacre. This simple truth almost takes your breath away.

When Seung-Hui Cho killed himself he did not eliminate the population of U.S. residents capable of committing the next school massacre. In my heart I know what you know. We could put together the right people to develop systems that prevent many of these incidents.

Despite all of the publicity surrounding identity theft, it is sad that the credit cards in my wallet are safer than the college students who live in my neighborhood.

Jan Ricks Jennings

Senior Consultant

Senior Management Services, LLC

Jan.Jennings@EagleTalons.net

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Reprinted with permission from Western Pennsylvania Boomers Magazine