Virginia Tech Is Much to Blame for Murder's Act That's my view. Taken from the Richmond Times Dispatch, if correct, this disproves that VT cares about the student population. More so, I think, they care about appearances. Now, I defended the administration as attempting to do all they could but this development and the school's attempt to hide the truth about Cho's counseling lead me to believe that the administration actively obfuscated (lied for you in Rio Linda) about their responsibility. Why? To save their own butts. These are the same folks who don't want vetted, cleared, responsible citizens who pay their salaries to carry concealed on campus. Yeah, that's probably a good thing seeing as these administrators don't care who does what so long as it appears they have a safe campus.

Disconnect revealed by Cho's records
State policy and Tech policy clashed tragically to let Cho "fall
through the cracks."

By Mike Gangloff

Back in December 2005, Virginia's mental health system ordered
Seung-Hui Cho into outpatient treatment -- and got him an appointment
at Virginia Tech's counseling center, which has a policy of not
accepting court-ordered referrals.

It's an example of the sort of disconnect that needs to be corrected
to prevent tragedies like the campus bloodbath that left 33 people
dead 16 months after Cho's encounter with mental health workers, said
a preliminary report given this week to the state panel reviewing the
April 16 shootings. Cho's shooting rampage ended when he took his own
life.

And it's likely to be further impetus for state legislators to revamp
mental health laws when the General Assembly convenes next year.

"We shouldn't have a system where somebody falls through the cracks
like this," Sen. John Edwards, D-Roanoke, said Friday.

Medical records released this week by Cho's family may indicate if
Cho fell into a limbo between the court order and the Cook Counseling
Center's policy.

Clarifying whom university mental health services will serve -- and
better defining the role of other agencies involved in mental health,
including community services boards -- is one of three broad areas of
recommendations in the new report from James Stewart, Virginia's
inspector general for mental health, mental retardation and mental
services.

The report also recommends increasing funding for mental health
services statewide, and giving more comprehensive information to
officials charged with deciding whether to commit someone to
involuntary treatment.

And the report gives the most detailed official chronology thus far
made public of Cho's problems with teachers and with fellow students
and how he came to be detained for a night in a mental health
facility near Radford.

Gerald Amada, who has written three books about student behavior
issues and whose 30-year career at City College of San Francisco
included founding its student mental health services, said Tech fell
into what he described as an all-too-common pattern at universities:
letting Cho's escalating antisocial behavior be treated as a mental
health issue.

"Mental health is not an area that most universities are equipped to
handle," Amada said. Like Tech's, many university health centers
won't take court referrals because these usually are cases where
treatment may need to be compelled, something a school is not set up
to do.

"But universities do have plenty of power to expel students who do
not meet codes of conduct," Amada said.

"When you accommodate a student who is flagrantly violating the rules
and scaring people ... you send a very powerful moral message, and
the message is 'You can keep doing what you're doing,'" Amada said.

Chris Flynn, who directs the Cook Counseling Center, said he could
not comment on Cho's case specifically. But he agreed that Tech's
services are not set up to handle involuntary treatment.

"If someone's that ill ... then the university's probably not the
place they need to be," Flynn said.

The inspector general's report indicates that after Cho made a
reference to suicide in December 2005, the first mental health worker
to see him collected information on his history of odd behavior.

The report does not detail how much of this information was passed to
a psychologist who examined Cho the next day. But at Monday's meeting
of the state panel, Kent McDaniel, a psychiatrist who helped prepare
the inspector general's report, told the panel that the information
had been passed along.

Still, the psychologist who conducted a 15-minute independent
evaluation of Cho at St. Albans Behavioral Health Center concluded
that while Cho was mentally ill, he posed no imminent danger. Later
that day -- after an appointment had been made for Cho at Tech's
counseling center -- a special justice ruled that Cho should have
outpatient treatment.

A House of Delegates committee will meet Monday to discuss mental
health policy issues raised by the Tech shootings. The committee will
hold four meetings before the General Assembly convenes in January,
and its work could lead to proposed reforms.

"I don't believe this situation is going to require us to overhaul
our entire mental health system," said Del. Phil Hamilton, R-Newport
News. "But it is going to point out some things that we either
haven't been paying attention to or that we actually need to improve
in the code."

Staff writer Michael Sluss contributed to this report.

Labels: Culture

  ¶ posted by The Editor 9:15 PM