New Delhi: Virginia Tech shooter Cho Seung-Hui was referred to a mental health facility in 2005 after officers responded to accusations that he was suicidal and stalked female students, police said on Wednesday.
Authorities received no more complaints about the 23-year-old English major until Monday when he killed at least 33 people before taking his own life on the Virginia Tech campus, university police Chief Wendell Flinchum said.
Police first investigated Cho in November 2005 after a student complained about him calling her and contacting her in person, Flinchum said.
Cho was sent to the university's Office of Judicial Affairs, which handled the complaint, the outcome of which is confidential, university officials said.
“The student declined to press charges and referred to Cho's contact with her as annoying,” Flinchum said of the November investigation.
Police investigated him again the following month when a female student complained about instant messages Cho sent her, Flinchum said.
"Again, no threat was made against that student. However, she made a complaint to the Virginia Tech Police Department and asked that Cho have no further contact with her," the chief said.
After police spoke to Cho, they received a call from a student concerned that he might be suicidal.
Officers spoke to Cho "at length" then asked him to see a counsellor. He agreed to be evaluated by Access Services, an independent mental health facility in Blacksburg, the chief said.
"A temporary detention order was obtained and Cho was taken to a mental health facility" on December 13, 2005, he said.
Professor recalls 'mean streak'
As tales of Cho's worrisome behavior continued to surface on Wednesday, a renowned poet and author who taught the 23-year-old gunman called the notion that he was troubled "crap" and said he was downright "mean."
Nikki Giovanni said she immediately suspected Cho when she got word of the shootings.
"I knew when it happened that that's probably who it was," Giovanni said, referring to her former pupil. "I would have been shocked if it wasn't."
Cho's poetry was so intimidating, and his behavior so menacing, that Giovanni had him removed from her class in the fall of 2005, she said. Giovanni said the final straw came when two of her students quit attending her poetry sessions because of Cho.
"I was trying to find out, what am I doing wrong here?" Giovanni recalled thinking, but the students later explained, "He's taking photographs of us. We don't know what he's doing."
Giovanni went to the department's then-chairwoman, Lucinda Roy, and told her, "I was willing to resign before I was going to continue with him." Roy took Cho out of Giovanni's class.
"I know we're talking about a troubled youngster but troubled youngsters get drunk and jump off buildings; troubled youngsters drink and drive," Giovanni said. "I've taught troubled youngsters. I've taught crazy people. It was the meanness that bothered me. It was a, really, mean streak."
Roy, who taught Cho one-on-one after removing him from Giovanni's class, recalled Cho exhibiting a palpable anger and secretly taking photographs of other students while holding the camera under his desk. His writings were so disturbing, she said, that she went to the police and university administrators for help.
"The threats seemed to be underneath the surface," she said. "They were not explicit and that was the difficulty the police had."
Ian McFarlane, who had class with Cho, said two plays written by Cho were so "twisted" that McFarlane and other students openly pondered "whether he could be a school shooter."
(With inputs from CNN.com)
Comments
0 comment