Gunmen Sent Video, Letters To NBC *In Between Shootings*
Update: Video Clip At Hot Air

Video about halfway down the long post.

What a douchebag.

Allah notes the "media package" was signed "A. Ishmael," further casting doubt on whatever was left of the jihad theory. He also alludes to Christ's agony, which seems, you know, an other refutation.

Basically he whines about what a loser he is, and how everyone ought to feel bad for his loserdom.

...

It really would have been a good idea to lock the campus down after the first shootings, eh?

Sometime after he killed two people in a Virginia university dormitory but before he slaughtered 30 more in a classroom building Monday morning, Cho Seung-Hui mailed NBC News a rambling communication and videos about his grievances, the network said Wednesday.

Cho, 23, a senior English major at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, killed 32 people in two attacks before taking his own life.

NBC News President Steve Capus said the network received the package in Wednesday morning's mail delivery and immediately turned the material over to FBI agents in New York. The FBI is assisting Virginia State Police in the investigation.

The package included a long, “rambling, manifesto-like statement embedded with a series of photographs,” Capus said. The material is “hard-to-follow ... disturbing, very disturbing — very angry, profanity-laced,” he said.

It does not include any images of the shootings Monday, but it does include “vague references,” including “things like ‘This didn’t have to happen,’ ” Capus said in an interview late Wednesday afternoon.

NBC spokesmen said they would handle the videos with "all the discretion, care, and sensitivity that a certifiable ratings bonanza deserves."

Earlier I was trying to think of ways to have gotten Cho into the system and thus flagged as far as gun purchases. Turns out he already was in the system. Just not so far in the system as to prevent him from buying guns.

Among the materials are 23 QuickTime video files showing Cho talking directly to the camera about his hatred of the wealthy, Capus said.

As early as 2005, police and school administrators were wrestling with what to do with Cho, who was accused of stalking two female students and was sent to a mental health facility after police obtained a temporary detention order.

The two women complained to campus police that Cho was contacting them with “annoying” telephone calls and e-mail messages in November and December 2005, campus Police Chief Wendell Flinchum said.

Cho was referred to the university’s disciplinary system, but Flinchum said the woman declined to press charges, and the case apparently never reached a hearing.

However, after the second incident, the department received a call from an acquaintance of Cho’s, who was concerned that he might be suicidal, Flinchum said. Police obtained a temporary detention order from a local magistrate, and in December of that year, Cho was voluntarily but briefly admitted to Carilion St. Albans Behavioral Health Center in Radford, NBC News’ Jim Popkin reported.

To issue a detention order under Virginia law, a magistrate must find both that the subject is “mentally ill and in need of hospitalization or treatment” and that the subject is “an imminent danger to himself or others, or is so seriously mentally ill as to be substantially unable to care for himself.”

Note that NBC's account seems to diverge from the Washington Post's, linked by Allah. The Washington Post article states that Cho's mental illness and threat to himself and others wasn't implicit -- it was explictly noted in the record:

The order, signed by Montgomery County, Va., Special Justice Paul M. Barnett, checked a box that said Cho "presents an imminent danger to himself as a result of mental illness." But Barnett checked another box that said involuntary hospitalization was not necessary.

"Brief" though this detention was, shouldn't it have been enough to get his name into NICS?

The NBC report continues:

According to a doctor’s report accompanying the order, which was first reported by the Richmond Times-Dispatch, Cho was “depressed,” but “his insight and judgment are normal.” The doctor, a clinical psychologist who was not identified, noted that Cho “denies suicidal ideations.”

Under the law, the magistrate could have issued a stronger detention order mandating inpatient treatment, but there was no indication Wednesday that such an order was ever entered. A spokesman for Carilion St. Albans told NBC News that he could not discuss Cho’s case because of patient confidentiality and privacy laws, but he said the hospital was cooperating with the investigation.

Tough call, but maybe the law needs to take into account that there are some folks who may not be yet committable and yet should be flagged as far as weapons purchases. If they want to buy a gun, they should perhaps have to appear before a magistrate and convince him of their stability.

The guy was a stalker, a classic escalating step on the pathway to murderous psycopathy. He was detained as being mentally ill and a possible threat to others. And yet he passed an NICS instant background check?

Why?

Thanks to RocketBrainTrust.

Just Saw A Clip On FoxNews: It certainly looks and sounds like a martyrdom video. But then I guess these things usually do seem like that.

posted by Ace at 06:11 PM

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