Scared Monkeys Discussion Forum

this is one of the saddest stories...

prayers for those in the community, the students, parents and friends of those at Virginia Tech....

"May the peace of God which surpasses all understanding be with you"... and keep you

Thank you for starting this thread Mrs, this is incomprehensible and I pray these students and staff as well as their families can endure this tragedy. God bless each of them and hopefully our prayers can help in some small way to sustain them.

My prayers go out to the familes of the slain students and those who were injured. My prayers also for the police who had to witness the carnage.

 I even pray for the family of the gunmen. It is such a tragedy for all.

I also pray for the student who were not injured. This will live in there minds forever just as 911 does in ours.

i am just getting home and seeing the news....what a tragedy...every parents worse nightmare :cry:
so heartbreaking!

Being home, I had had the TV on watching weather reports, so I heard very early today.  It's beyond belief.  I kept saying to my husband, if family of students heard earlier today and had not yet heard from their son/daughter/spouse or whatever, I cannot imagine the panic.  

Prayers for all,for understanding how this can happen and some hope of prevention.

This is so horribly tragic.  I can't stop watching the news.  My prayers to all those kids and families...

We got our power back today and I am just shocked at the news!

My heart goes out to all that are affected by this tragedy :cry:

My prayer to all those affected by this horrid, senseless tradedy.  :(
I am praying as well for the sick childs parents who commited this horrific crime.  :(

 We have had some local kids in my area who were also at the school.
 One girl who was shot in the stomach.   Shes expected to recover.
 ANother boy.. who was in class.. went to HS with my daughter. She was a senior in HS and he was a junior. He is ok. It was in my local newspaper this morning. and I was suprised to see kids from my area here in Pa. God Bless all of those people in VA.  I cant  find the right words to post.  :oops:
 Here is the article from my local paper here in PA.

 http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/s_503091.html

God give the families and friends of those involved strength to carry on.  This is truly a tragedy.

A more fitting expression of what I tried to say, I received this via email:

 
Father, right now we acknowledge You & we acknowledge Your presence & Your sovereignty.  Father we lift up Virginia Tech & the people affected by the evil that has taken place on the campus.  We pray that Your Spirit be with them.  We pray that Your loving arms be wrapped around them & comfort them in this tragic time.  We pray for families, neighbors, & friends.  We pray for staff, professors, & administrators.  God, we pray for people.  We pray for humanity.  We pray that this event will not cause people to turn from You but it will cause a nation to run to You like they have never run before.  We pray for increased faith.  We pray for spiritual growth.  We pray for Christian fellowship & salvation of souls.  We pray that your hand will move mightily over Blacksburg, VA & over this nation.  Touch souls right now & comfort broken hearts.  Forgive us for our sins Father.  In Your Son Jesus Christ name we pray.  Amen.  

***Please forward this so that we can get a nation praying for Blacksburg, VA and for our country***

Lifting up all effected by this tragedy in prayer.

.

I understand that the "shooter" mailed a package to NBC and part of the contents will be shared on air at 6:30 p.m. on NBC News.....the package contains ramblings, pictures, and more....

As Clint van Zandt said this is Cho's way of reaching out from the grave to drag us into his twisted mind. All I can think of now is why his family didn't feel this son needed help and why our law enforcement system waits for people to commit crimes before anything can be done to avert it.

This manifesto also drags the families of the victims as well as the victims who survived, through this horror all over again. He wasn't human anymore, he had lost all sense of humanity.

Mrs thank you for the prayer, it helps.

My thoughts and prayers are with all those involved in this tragedy.  The families and loved ones of the students and lecturers and all the police and medical personnel who had to deal with the aftermath.

Mrs Red, thank you for posting that prayer.  It says all that we would like to express.

There were also some Australian students at that university and one girl missed being involved by having to return to her room to change shoes.  
I will  post a small article from our local newspaper just to show that we do feel involved even though we are so far away.

TASMANIA SHARES PAIN

Glenn Cordingley
April 18, 2007 12:00am

TASMANIA has offered to share what it learned from the 1996 Port Arthur massacre to help Virginia Tech deal with Monday's massacre.
Virginia Governor Tim Kaine has declared a state of emergency after a gunman went on the rampage at the university, gunning down 32 students before shooting himself dead.
In a letter to Mr Kaine, Tasmanian Premier Paul Lennon yesterday compared the Virginia Tech massacre, the worst shooting rampage in US history, with Martin Bryant's killing of 35 people at the Port Arthur historic site in Tasmania in April, 1996.
Bryant is serving 35 life sentences at Risdon Prison, near Hobart.
"Tasmanians share the world's horror at the anguish caused by this senseless violence," Mr Lennon said in the letter.
"Following a similar incident at Port Arthur in our state we experienced how such an unexpected and tragic event can leave individuals and communities feeling deeply shocked and helpless. I offer our support and assistance, should there be any way in which Tasmania can help Virginians as they begin the long healing process that follows such a tragedy."
Mr Lennon also wrote to Virginia Tech president Charles Steger, offering support.
"We know that the road to recovery is long and painful and offer our support and assistance, should there be any way in which Tasmanians can help the Virginia Tech community cope with the aftermath of such a loss," he wrote.
"Our thoughts are with you, your staff and the students and the extended Virginia Tech community."

Tibro... thank you!

SHOES SAVED AUSSIE'S LIFE FROM US GUNMAN

AAPTuesday April 17, 06:51 PM

An Australian student caught up in the Virginia Tech University massacre believes a misplaced pair of shoes saved her from walking straight into the path of the gunman who killed 32 people.

Alana Fragar had the front door open and her coat on, but stopped to look for her shoes before heading off on the short walk to morning classes at the university in Blacksburg, Virginia. While looking for the shoes, she received an email alert warning students a gunman was loose on campus and to stay inside.

"[I'm] so lucky. If so many things had not happened ... I didn't have my computer working until this week. I would have just walked straight into it without knowing anything," Ms Fragar told Fairfax. "If I had have found my shoes straight away, I would have not got the email. It's just crazy."

The second-year psychology student from Sydney lives in a flat 500 metres from Norris Hall, where 30 people were shot and where she presumes at least one friend was killed and another, Clay Violand, pretended to be dead as dying classmates fell on top of him.

"I was the only one who wasn't shot," Mr Violand told Ms Fragar in a graphic email exchange. "I watched my f***ing classmates get mauled in front of me and I was the only one who wasn't shot. I feel crazy. People died on top of me. "I just pretended to be dead and people got shot in the face. I was so scared. I love you."

Ms Fragar said Mr Violand was struggling to cope with the fact he escaped death while he saw his classmates killed.

"The gunman was walking in and not saying anything at all, just opening fire and killing whoever he could and then leaving again," she told ABC Radio.

Ms Fragar's parents live in Washington DC while her sister Michelle, who is currently there on holiday, was planning to drive to Virginia to comfort her on Wednesday after being held back by storms on Tuesday.

Among around 10 Australians at Virginia Tech, Australian Under 21s basketball representative Eleanor Brentnall, 19, from Melbourne, was in the dormitory opposite the building where the gunman's first two victims were shot at around 7.15am, two hours before the Norris Hall rampage.

But Ms Brentnall, who is on a sporting scholarship at Virginia Tech, was one of many students who went to class after the first shooting, believing they were safe.

"I was on the phone with her through the night," said her mother Anne Welfare in a release issued by Basketball Australia. "She is resilient, but she's totally distressed at the unnecessary loss of life.  She's in shock to some extent; there's just so much grief. Eleanor said that the police were yelling and people were running for their lives."

Australian research engineer Christopher Hull said he heard several bursts of rapid gunfire from his office adjoining Norris Hall. "About 10 o'clock I heard a number of gunshots, probably 15, 20 and then all of a sudden students came running out of the building," Mr Hull told ABC Radio.

"Some appeared hurt and then there were more shots and very soon after that heavily-armed police turned up. There were more gunshots and then injured people were being brought out and taken away in ambulances."

Staff were told to stay in their offices, to lock their doors, turn out the lights and stay away from the windows, he said.

"I felt nervous, but I think we felt a lot worse when we found out how many people were killed," he said.

But Mr Hull said he would return to work on Wednesday.

"I think it will be good to go back there and talk amongst ourselves and share it amongst ourselves," he said.

Queensland student Lesley Garard said she stayed in her dormitory after also receiving the email.

"It's absolutely horrible, absolutely horrible. I'm sure the next couple of days are going to be overwhelming," she told the Nine Network.

"It really hit close to home, made me think it may have been me."

She said she had always felt comfortable in Blacksburg.

"I feel safer walking around the streets of Blacksburg at night than Gympie or Brisbane," she said.

"I'm really looking forward to coming back home now more than ever."

But she said the tragedy would not stop her completing her communications degree.

The Department of Foreign Affairs in Canberra said it had not received any calls from relatives unable to contact family members.

Nonesuche asked why Cho's family didn't feel this son needed help.  

I thought something was seriously wrong when I read his parents drove him to VTech, dropped him off and drove back home. That says he was disconnected from his parents.  Wonder how old he was when they disconnected.

Yes, the police will not arrest someone until they do a crime.

The video tapes he sent to NBC (that he made in the two hours between the first and second shooting locations) are indeed reaching out from the grave to drag us into his twisted mind.

But I wanna know. I wish I could get into his mind.

Tibro,

I believe in fate. If the girl had not gone back for other shoes, she would have been killed. It was not her time or fate.

Besides him making these videos in the two hour window, he packaged them up and went to the post office to mail them to NBC. Then he came back to kill more people. He sounds very organized to me.

Tibro,
 I am glad that gal had to go back and get her shoes.
   This whole thing is just horrifying. I didnt get to look at this kids mainfesto he made yet. I did save the link from AOL.  :evil:
  I saw the poor kids pics that were victims,,  :(  God Love them all.
 
 Louise. I agree. FATE.

I do feel sad for this kids parents as well.  I cant imagine.  :(

Tib thank heavens for shoes !! It sounds as if that poor male Aussie who survived by playing dead is already exhibiting surivivor's guilt as well, the repercussions of this carnage are so immense on so many. Just the six degrees of separation theory dictates this, I spoke this morning with a friend whose daughter lost 3 friends in this and another one survived but it was a full day before they located her in the hospital. It must be agony......

I found this to be a compelling commentary on the message this killer sent plus the web is abuzz regarding his Islamic references...

Killer's manifesto reveals the dark side of new media


By Phil Rosenthal
Tribune media columnist
Published April 19, 2007, 12:23 AM CDT

NEW YORK -- There is the young man with dead eyes talking about his crimes in the past tense, the photos of him striking a "Taxi Driver" pose, the lengthy written rant.

Whatever dementia drove Cho Seung Hui, the now-dead student police have identified as the Virginia Tech mass murderer, he apparently had the presence of mind between killing sprees Monday to go to the post office and send what would be called his "multimedia manifesto" to NBC News.

Because he botched the address and ZIP code, his overnight envelope, mailed at 9:01 a.m., according to a clerk's note on the label, arrived at NBC—and on the air Wednesday—a day later than he intended.

"When the time came, I did it. I had to," he says in the tape, eerily using the past tense.

"You had 100 billion chances and ways to have avoided today but you decided to spill my blood," he says in the tape, casting himself as a victim from the grave. "You forced me into a corner and gave me only one option. The decision was yours. Now you have blood on your hands that will never wash off."

Two days earlier so many of us marveled at the striking video, images and sound provided almost instantly to television by students media-savvy enough to point their phone cameras at the gruesome events unfolding before their eyes, and soon everyone else's.

Yet the idea of a media savvy student issuing his own video, images and sound to present his own crazed version of what set those events in motion—"much of it is incoherent, laced with profanity," reported NBC's Pete Williams—leaves us dumbstruck.

This is, it would seem, the dark side of so-called citizen journalism, the news speaking for itself.

If eyewitnesses can nearly instantly transmit their experiences in the face of something horrible, then so too can those inflicting the horror.

If Cho didn't put his message in a package for a major media outlet, then he might well have put it on a Web site, or a Facebook or MySpace page, or posted it on YouTube. A mere suicide note rambling about perceived injustices, apparently, is so 20th Century.

It's reminiscent of a 2001 film, "15 Minutes," which starred Edward Burns, Kelsey Grammer and the one-time Travis Bickle himself, Robert De Niro. It was about bad guys who taped themselves committing murder, tried to sell the video to a tabloid TV show for $1 million then hoped to skate with an insanity plea, citing abuse as kids.

Six years ago, that seemed cynically over-the-top.

In the Virginia Tech massacre, there is evidence the assassin was preparing his materials, his own eulogy, his own version of reality for our consumption, at least as far back as six days before his attacks. He had been arming himself for one-sided combat well before that, but the "multimedia manifesto" was obviously a critical part of his battle plan.

"We are sensitive to how this will be seen by those affected," anchor Brian Williams said on "The NBC Nightly News." "And we know we are, in effect, airing the words of a murderer."

Actually, this self-styled video news release, Cho's crude attempt to manipulate the media by putting his own stamp on his misdeeds, is the least offensive thing he did.

Just as surely as it is sickening, however, NBC had no choice but to report what he said, how he said it, even the facts of how he crafted and prepackaged his message.

It's undeniably news, if only because it's something we've so rarely seen. Up till now.

philrosenthal@tribune.com


Copyright © 2007, Chicago Tribune

Here is something about the family. I do feel sorry for them. They are in a strange country, they have to deal with the loss of there son and the guilt of what he did. As you see, they knew something was wrong, but did they know how find the proper resources for help?
I am in NO way defending this sick persons actions, but to try and understand he WAS sick and reaching out for help and our system failed him.  I'm not placing blame here, but thought you should see this. My heart aches for his family.

Gunman’s brooding disturbed his family
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usguns/Story/0,,2061278,00.html

The brooding silence of Cho Seung-hui was so impenetrable it disturbed his family even when he was a boy growing up in South Korea, relatives of the Virginia killer told the Guardian today.
His grandfather feared Cho, at eight, might be mute; the boy’s great aunt worried that he had mental problems. And his mother, Kim Hyang-im, spent most of her time in church praying for him to snap out of his unhealthy taciturnity.

“She was heartbroken. It was always her biggest worry when she called home,” said the mother’s aunt, Kim Yang-soon. “After they moved to America, she hoped his silences would ease as he grew older. But in fact, they got worse.”

The poor but hard-working family had a difficult beginning. Cho’s mother was forced into an arranged marriage with his father, Sung-tae, who was 10 years older and from a very different background. She was from a well-educated family of North Korean landowners, who had been forced to flee without possessions during the Korean war; he was from a poor family in the south, but had made enough money to marry by working in Saudi Arabia for 10 years on construction sites and oil fields.

As Hyang-im was 29 - a late age for a woman to find a husband in South Korea - her father told her she had to accept the proposal. “She didn’t want to marry, but she gave in,” said Yong-soon. “Her husband was not fit for her. But she always followed and obeyed him. She never fought him, though sometimes I wish she had done.” No one in the family recalls any violent behaviour from Cho or his parents that might have hinted at the carnage to come.

But they were unnerved by his sullenness. “My grandson was shy even as a little boy and he would never run to me like my other grandchildren,” his maternal grandfather, Kim HyongShik, told the Hankyeoreh Daily. “The boy was so different from his super-intelligent older sister. His extreme shyness worried his parents. I thought he might be deaf and dumb.”

Schoolmates interviewed by local media said they remembered Cho as quiet and nondescript. His former teacher, Noh Yong-gil, has no recollection of him.

But the father doted on his son and daughter. “He lived for his children. He would have done anything for them,” the grandfather recalled. “But now this has happened. It’s as if everything they’ve done, the reason for their whole existence has been for nothing. It’s as if they’ve not lived at all.”

The family moved to the US in 1992. It did not go smoothly. During their eight-year wait for a visa, they became increasingly short of money, selling their second-hand shop and their home to make ends meet.

They had spent the night before their flight with the mother’s family, who live in a wooden hut in the middle of a field of cabbages, spring onions and horseradishes. “They were very happy to finally be going. They thought they were off to a better life,” said Yang-soon.

It was only the second time the grandparents had seen their grandson. “He would not talk even when I called to him. He was so quiet that I remarked that he must have a very gentle nature,” Yang-soon said. “But his mother told me he was too quiet. Soon after they got to America, he was diagnosed as being clinically withdrawn. It amazes me that he ever made it into university. I guess he must have had some mental problems from birth.”

Cho’s family worked hard to make a success of their life in the US. His father spent hours in the laundry, earning enough money for his children’s education. His mother supplemented their income with part-time employment as a waitress at a cafeteria. Her spare time was devoted to the Korean church in Centreville, where she implored the pastor to help her son. According to the Joong-ang Daily, she always prayed that her boy could become more outgoing.

When Cho started college, at Virginia Tech, his mother took his dormitory mates to one side to explain about her son’s unusual character and implored them to help.

“She was worried that he spent all his time in his room, lost in a world of video games,” the paper quoted the pastor as saying. “[Cho] came to bible studies for a couple of years, but rarely spoke and never got along with the other youths. I can’t believe he has done this to such a devoted mother.”

Back in Seoul, the family are worried that they had not heard from Cho’s parents since the killings. They have wondered if things might have been different had they been able to bring the boy out of his shell. “I just wish he would have talked,” says Yong-soon. “There is an old saying in Korea that people who won’t talk will end up killing themselves. That is what happens when the resentment builds up.”

Oh Dihannah I can feel empathy for this family but I also cannot understand since my own daughter is best of friends with an Asian young lady of similar background, WHY this mother didn't seek assistance further. Cho kept a "death list" as early as middle school, he was suspended for this yet the mother still didn't access psychiatric care? The schools do bear some responsibility but also to ask 17 and 18 year old new college students/roommates to assist with Cho's problems?

My daughter's friend's mother speaks broken english too, yet when she had concerns even regarding simple grades that she worked with the system in our high school, and also produced two brilliant and high performing children. In the nine years we've known this family well not once did I ever feel they were not capable of managing their children as they should or supporting them as they should, nor making tough choices as we often are required to with our children.

As a christian I will surely try to forgive them but I simply cannot just toss this off as an immigrant family unsure where to turn, nor an arranged marriage gone awry. It was a clear lack of accountability IMO.

If  you haven't seen the tribute pages on CNN.com please go visit those to learn more about the victims from those who knew them, it's heart wrenching but I sat and read each and every one and said prayers for each. I want to acknowledge them, their potential, and the great loss each one represents to our world. I hope others can share in that effort.

Dear Tyler,

I do not believe Cho's parents taught him to hate. They came to Virginia and tried to do their very best for their children. They got a dry cleaning business and made enough money for Cho's sister's Sun-Kyung to graduate from Princeton in 2004. Then they sent Cho to VT. It seems to me they wanted the best for Cho and worked their asses off to make enough money to send the kids to the best universities.  

Almost all immigrants who come to the US with young children have a plan in place to work hard to get their kids educated so that they can be successful in America. Education is the key to a better life. They didn't know that Sun-Kyung's sucess would not carry over to their son.

I read that Cho's mama was asked what was wrong with him, at an early age, because he didn't talk. She said he is autistic, but I feel that is the excuse she gave to silence the questions. I think Cho's parents were so confused and maybe did not know what resources were available to help him. They were not able to give him appropriate guidance. When they realized he was not acting right, they tried to ignore it. Working full time, stuggling to make a living to support the kids, parents can get worn out.

The following is an e-mail I received from a neighbor
to victim, Reema Samaha.  I  thought you might find
it as touching as I did:


The tragedy at Virginia Tech last week demonstrated the diversity of nationality and ethnicity that defines the modern American university.  Among the fatalities were citizens of several foreign countries: Canada, Peru, India, Egypt, Indonesia, Israel/Romania, and Puerto Rico.  The killer was from Korea.  Of the Americans, one was a Chinese immigrant, and another lived in Germany for several years and had a German wife.  Two had strong ties to Lebanon.  One of these, Reema Samaha, was my neighbor.

So it was that I decided to extend my weekend and attend her funeral service today.  I didn't know Reema, but I have learned a lot about her over the past few days.  She was the youngest of the Virginia Tech victims, two months shy of her nineteenth birthday.  A freshman at Virginia Tech.  Her passion was dance of all kinds, and she was actively performing in both high school and college.  Ironically, she was stranded in a war zone in Beirut last summer while visiting relatives, and was among those evacuated by the American military.  She spoke Arabic and was conversant in French, which her mother taught at a local high school.  That explains her being in an Intermediate French class last week when the killer burst in, shot the teacher point blank, and proceeded to mow down Reema and eleven of her classmates, the highest death toll of any classroom.  Five students survived.

There were hundreds of people at the service this morning.  I got to the church early and managed to get a seat in the back, but many people were left standing.  There was a large overflow outside, along with many police and cameramen.  Luminaries were present.  Virginia's ex-governor, John Warner, sat behind me, and I later conversed with a major correspondent for an Arabic language newspaper whom I recognized from television.  The religion of the church is Christian Melkite.  They practice the Eastern rites of the Catholic Church.  They ultimately pay some fealty to Rome, but it mostly leaves them alone.  It's something of a bridge between the Catholic and Orthodox branches of Christianity, but is much smaller than either.   A majority of the members of this particular congregation have Middle Eastern backgrounds.  I have never before met so many Arabic speaking people.  Many congregants are from Lebanon, but Syria, and Egypt, and Armenia are also represented.  At the funeral today there were Arab Muslims as well.  The older priest who performed the funeral ceremony also baptized Reema and married her parents.  The Samahas are very active in this church.

I rode one of the busses that was provided to the cemetery.  I hesitated about going because of the size of the crowd,  but I am glad I decided to go because the weather was beautiful today and I ended up with a good vantage point.  There were nice gestures along the route: American flags at half staff, Virginia Tech colors and shirts.   At the gravesite there was another religious ceremony, followed by a walk by of the casket by all present, with many of the women dropping off a flower and kissing the casket. Reema's immediate family members were the first to leave.  

Back at the church we were served a "mercy meal", excellent Middle Eastern fare.  Then we saw a slideshow of photographs depicting the life of Reema, from her birth to young adulthood, put together by extended family members.  It was accompanied by music, sung mostly English but some in Arabic.  Very touching - there was not a dry eye in the house.

Joe Samaha is Reema's father.  He is a Lebanese American who studied at the American University in Beirut.  That's where he met Mona, Reema's father, who is a native of Lebanon and has an accent reflecting that.  They had three children, two girls and a boy, with Reema being the youngest.  Reema was very pretty, as is her mother.  In fact, all five members of the family, male and female, are strikingly good looking.  Joe has been thrust into the media limelight, but has handled himself very well.  Sunday's Washington Post featured his family on the front page, and I saw him interviewed this past week on both CNN and NBC.  Both Wolf Blitzer and Brian Williams were struck by how articulate and composed he was.  That was also true today.  He told us that "reema" means "fawn" in Arabic, and "samaha" means forgiveness.  He asked for sympathy for and remembrance of the families of the other victims, and the Choe family, whom he noted had also lost a son.   Other family members also spoke about Reema: cousins, an uncle, and her brother and sister.  Her godparents described the Samahas as deeply devoted to their children.  Even if Reema had only a short life, she was very much loved, something not true of every child.  All in all, it was a class act.  I introduced myself to Joe as his neighbor, and he welcomed me.  I told him I admired his strength of character.  

I trust I will never have to bear a burden as heavy as that of this family, but if I do I hope I can find the strength to conduct myself with the grace and dignity it has demonstrated these past few days.  

Tomorrow I go back to work.  In a few days the emotions of the past week will begin to fade.  Unfortunately, the Samaha family will feel their loss for the rest of their lives.