Governor declares day of mourning
BLACKSBURG, Va. — The governor declared today a day of mourning for the victims at Virginia Tech as experts pored over Cho Seung-Hui's twisted writings and parents and officials urged everyone else to focus on healing from the deadliest shooting rampage in modern U.S. history.
Churches around the country planned vigils and prayer services for the 32 victims. Gov. Timothy Kaine called for a moment of silence at noon, and alumni urged everyone to wear the school's orange and maroon.
"We want the world to know and celebrate our children's lives, and we believe that's the central element that brings hope in the midst of great tragedy," said Peter Read, whose 19-year-old daughter, Mary Karen Read, was killed. "These kids were the best that their generation has to offer."
He and others urged television stations to stop broadcasting the gruesome, hate-filled videos and photos of Cho, the 23-year-old English major who carried out the killings. Several networks agreed to scale back their use.
As families began burying the victims, investigators worked on the evidence and looked into the warning signs in Cho's past, including two stalking complaints against him and a psychiatric hospital visit in which he was found to be a danger to himself.
Jeremy Herbstritt's family sat quietly in a worship hall in State College on Thursday as students and staff lit candles and signed a condolence banner for Herbstritt, a graduate student killed at Virginia Tech.
"We will remember" read a large sign near the front.
Private funeral ceremonies were held Thursday for Egyptian Waleed Mohammed Shaalan and Partahi Mamora Halomoan Lumbantoruan of Indonesia. Engineering professor Liviu Librescu, a Holocaust survivor whose family says tried to save his students amid the shooting Monday, was buried in Israel.
Cho's videos, which were mailed to NBC the morning of the killings, revealed a man angry at the world but offered little explanation of why, other than rambling tirades against rich kids, snobs and people who had wronged him.
As experts analyzed the disturbing materials, it became increasingly clear that Cho was almost a classic case of a school shooter: a painfully awkward, picked-on young man who lashed out with methodical fury at a world he believed was out to get him.
When criminologists and psychologists look at mass murders, Cho fits the themes they see repeatedly: a friendless figure, someone who has been bullied, someone who blames others and is bent on revenge, a careful planner, a male. And someone who saw warning signs in his strange behavior long in advance.
Cho, who came to the U.S. at about age 8 in 1992 and whose parents worked at a dry cleaners in suburban Washington, also ranted against rich "brats" with Mercedes, gold necklaces, cognac and trust funds.
Classmates in Virginia, where Cho grew up, said he was teased and picked on, apparently because of shyness and his strange, mumbly way of speaking.
Once, in English class at Westfield High School in Chantilly, Va., when the teacher had the students read aloud, Cho looked down when it was his turn, said Chris Davids, a Virginia Tech senior and high school classmate. After the teacher threatened him with an F for participation, Cho began reading in a strange, deep voice that sounded "like he had something in his mouth," Davids said.
"The whole class started laughing and pointing and saying, 'Go back to China,"' Davids said.
