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Seung-Hui Cho
BornCho Seung-Hui
(1984-01-18)January 18, 1984
South Korea Seoul, South Korea
DiedApril 16, 2007(2007-04-16) (aged 23)
United States Blacksburg, Virginia, USA
Cause of deathSuicide
Other namesSeung Cho
OccupationUndergraduate student

Template:Koreanname Seung-Hui Cho (January 18 1984 – April 16 2007) was a university student who shot and killed 32 people, and wounded many more, in a shooting spree termed the "Virginia Tech massacre." The massacre took place on April 16 2007 on the campus of the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech) in Blacksburg, Virginia, just four days before the eighth anniversary of the Columbine shooting. Cho committed suicide after law enforcement officers breached the doors of the academic building where he shot most of his victims, including faculty and students. Cho was a South Korean national with permanent resident status in the United States and a senior English major at Virginia Tech.

Childhood and adolescence

In September 1992, Seung-Hui Cho immigrated to the United States at age 8 with both of his parents and his older sister, Sun-Kyung Cho. Cho's family lived in Detroit, Michigan before moving to Centreville, an unincorporated town located in western Fairfax County, Virginia about 25 miles (40 km) west of Washington, D.C. Cho was a permanent resident of the United States and a South Korean national whose permanent address was in Centreville. His parents are Christians and Cho himself was raised as a member of the religion.

Behavior as a young child

Cho's maternal great-aunt, Kim Yang-soon, described Cho as "cold" and a cause of family concern from as young as 8 years old. According to Kim—who met him only twice—Cho was extremely shy and "just wouldn't talk at all." He was otherwise considered "well-behaved," readily obeying verbal commands and cues. The aunt said she knew something was wrong after the family's departure for the United States because she heard frequent updates about Cho's older sister, but little news about Cho.

During a New Year's telephone call in 2006, Cho's mother told the elderly aunt that Cho might have autism, a developmental disability marked by profound social isolation and delayed speech acquisition. No autism diagnosis could be verified with Cho's parents, and no records or other evidence have surfaced to indicate such a diagnosis was made or relied upon by U.S. school authorities. Cho's relatives thought that he was mute or even mentally ill. According to Cho's uncle, Cho "didn’t say much and didn't mix with other children."

Behavior in elementary school

Cho studied at Poplar Tree Elementary School in Chantilly, an unincorporated town in Fairfax County. According to Kim Gyeong-won, Cho's friend in elementary school for three years who now attends Kyung Hee University in Seoul, South Korea, Cho finished the three-year program at Poplar Tree Elementary School in one and a half years. Cho was noted for being good at mathematics and English, and teachers pointed to him as an example for other students.

Kim met Cho in fifth grade, attending the same classes and riding the school bus together, where Kim and Cho were among three Korean students at the school during that time. Back then, he said, nobody hated Cho and he "was recognised by friends as a boy of knowledge ... a good dresser who was popular with the girls." Cho kept a distance from others because he chose to do so. Kim added that "I only have good memories about him."

Behavior in middle school and high school

Cho attended secondary schools in Fairfax County, including Stone Middle School in Centreville and Westfield High School in Chantilly.

In middle school and high school, Cho was teased and picked on for his shyness and unusual speech patterns. According to Chris Davids, a high school classmate in Cho's English class at Westfield High School, Cho looked down and refused to speak when called upon. After one teacher threatened to give Cho a failing grade for not participating in class, 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.'" Another classmate, Stephanie Roberts, stated that "here were just some people who were really cruel to him, and they would push him down and laugh at him. He didn't speak English really well, and they would really make fun of him." Cho was also teased as the "trombone kid" for his habit of walking to school alone with his trombone, other students recall crueler names and that most of the bullying was because he was so alone. Christopher Chomchird and Carmen Blandon, former classmates of Cho, stated that they heard rumors of a "hit list" of other students Cho wanted to kill. Blandon stated that she saw the "list" as a joke at the time. While several students recalled instances of Cho being teased and mocked at Westfield, most left him alone and were not aware of his anger. It is unknown if or how much his experience at Westfield contributed to his mental breakdown. Cho graduated from Westfield High School in 2003.

To address his problems, Cho's parents took him to church. However, Cho was bullied in his youth group, especially by "the rich kids." According to a pastor at Centreville Korean Presbyterian Church, Cho was an intelligent student who understood the Bible, but he was concerned about Cho’s difficulty in speaking to people. The pastor added that, until he saw the video that Cho sent to NBC News, he never saw him complete a sentence. The pastor also recalled that he told Cho's mother that he speculated Cho was a little autistic and he asked her to take him to a hospital, but she declined.

Demeanor at Virginia Tech

During 2003, Cho's freshman year at Virginia Tech, he enrolled as an undergraduate major in business information technology, a program that included "a combination of computer science and management coursework offered by the Pamplin College of Business." The undergraduate program for business information technology, considered one of the most challenging disciplines at Virginia Tech, was listed as No. 6 on the "list of majors with the highest median starting salary after graduation." By his senior year, Cho was an undergraduate majoring in English. Virginia Tech declined to divulge details about Cho's academic record and why he changed his major, citing privacy laws.

At the time of the attacks, Cho lived with five roommates in Suite 2121, a three-room dormitory at Harper Hall that is located just west of West Ambler Johnston Hall on the Virginia Tech campus.

Relationship with professors

Professor and acclaimed poet Nikki Giovanni, who taught Cho in a poetry class, stated that she had him removed from her class because she found his behavior menacing. She recalls being bothered by a "mean streak" and described Cho's writing as "intimidating." When informed of the massacre, she remarked, "I knew when it happened that that's probably who it was," and "I would have been shocked if it wasn't." Giovanni insisted that Cho be removed from her class in 2005, about six weeks after the semester had started in September; Cho had intimidated female students by photographing their legs under their desks and by writing obscene, violent poetry. Giovanni said, "I was willing to resign before I would continue with him." Giovanni wrote a letter to then-department head Lucinda Roy, who removed Cho from the class. Roy alerted student affairs, the dean's office, and the campus police, but each said there was nothing they could do if Cho had made no overt threats against himself or others.

Roy described Cho as "an intelligent man," and she stated that Cho seemed to be an awkward and very lonely and an insecure student who never took off his sunglasses, even indoors. She described Cho's behavior as at times "arrogant" and "obnoxious." Roy said that she tried several different ways to help him. Roy would not comment at length on Cho’s writings, saying only that in general the writings "seemed very angry." She added that Cho whispered his response after taking 20 seconds to answer questions, and he also took cell phone pictures of her in class. After Roy became concerned with Cho's behavior and the themes in his writings, she started meeting with Cho to work with him one-on-one. Roy said that she was concerned for her safety when she met with him. She told her assistant that, if she uttered the name of a dead professor (which served as a secret emergency code), the assistant was to call security. After Roy notified the legal authorities about Cho's behavior, Roy urged Cho to seek counseling, but he never followed through with the request to her knowledge.

When Virginia Tech creative writing professor Lisa Norris, who taught Cho in both Advanced Fiction Writing and Contemporary Fiction, inquired about Cho from the school's associate dean for Liberal Arts and Human Sciences Mary Ann Lewis, she was not told that Cho was suffering from mental health issues nor was she told about the prior police reports about the stalking incidents. Norris noted that, "y guess is that either the information was not accessible to her or it was privileged and could not be released to me." Lewis told Norris to recommend that Cho seek counseling at the on-campus Cook Counseling Center, which she had already done.

Relationship with students

Fellow students described Cho as a "quiet" person who "would not respond if someone greeted him." Student Julie Poole recalled the first day of a literature class the previous year when the students introduced themselves one by one. When it was Cho's turn to introduce himself, he did not speak. According to Poole, the professor looked at the sign-in sheet and found that, whereas everyone else wrote out their names, Cho wrote only a question mark. Poole added that "e just really knew him as the question mark kid."

Karan Grewal, one of the roommates who shared a room with Cho at Harper Hall, reported that Cho "would sit in a wood rocker by the window and stare at the lawn below." According to Grewal, "Cho appeared to never to go to class or read a book" during his (Cho's) senior year at Virginia Tech," adding that Cho just typed on his on laptop, went to the dining hall and clipped his hair in the bathroom, cleaning up the hair afterwards. Grewal also reported that he witnessed Cho riding his bicycle in circles in the parking lot of the dormitory.

Andy Koch and John Eide, students who also shared a room with Cho at Harper Hall, stated that Cho demonstrated other repetitive behaviors, such as listening repeatedly to "Shine" by the alternative rock band Collective Soul and writing the song's lyrics "Teach me how to speak; Teach me how to share; Teach me where to go" on the wall in his dormitory room. Koch described two unusual incidents, including one where Cho stood in the doorway of his room late at night taking photographs of him (Koch) and a second incident where Cho repeatedly placed harassing cell phone calls to Koch as "Cho's brother, 'Question Mark,'" a name Cho also used when introducing himself to girls with whom he was allegedly obsessed. Koch and Eide searched Cho's belongings and found a pocket knife, but they did not find any items that they deemed seriously threatening to them.

During fall 2005, Cho told Koch and Eide that he had an imaginary girlfriend by the name of "Jelly," a supermodel who lived in outer space and who called Cho by the name "Spanky" and traveled by spaceship. Because of Cho's troubling behavior, Koch and Eide, who had earlier tried to befriend Cho, gradually stopped talking to him and told their friends, especially female classmates, not to visit their room.

Andy Koch and John Eide also stated that Cho was involved in at least three stalking incidents, two of which resulted in verbal warnings by the Virginia Tech campus police. The first stalking incident occurred on November 27 2005. After the incident, according to Koch, Cho claimed to have sent an instant message online to the female student by AIM and found out where she lived on the campus. Koch also stated that Cho then visited her room to see if she was "cool," adding that Cho remarked that he only found "promiscuity" in her eyes. Eide added that, when Cho visited the female student, Cho said, "Hi, I'm Question Mark" to her, "which really freaked her out." The female student called the campus police, complaining that Cho had sent her annoying messages and made an unannounced visit to her room. Two uniformed members of the campus police visited Cho’s room at the dormitory later that evening and verbally warned him not to contact the female student again. Cho made no further contact with that female student.

The final stalking incident occurred on December 13 2005. Cho frightened a female friend of Koch by writing on her door board a line from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, Act 2, scene II, in which Romeo laments to Juliet:

My name, dear saint, is hateful to myself ... Had I it written, I would tear the word.

The young woman contacted the campus police, and the campus police again verbally warned Cho unwanted contacts. After that verbal warning, Cho made no further contact with the second female student. At a later time, Cho sent a text message to Koch with the words, "I might as well kill myself now." Worried that Cho was suicidal, Koch contacted his father for advice, and both of them contacted campus authorities. The campus police returned to the dormitory and escorted Cho to Carilion St. Albans Behavioral Health Center in Radford, Virginia.

Psychiatric evaluation

According to Virginia law, "A magistrate has the authority to issue a detention order upon a finding that a person is mentally ill and in need of hospitalization or treatment." The magistrate also must find that the person is an imminent danger to himself or others.

Court-ordered psychiatric assessment

On December 13 2005, Cho was temporarily detained for a psychiatric assessment, as he was suspected to be mentally ill and a danger to himself or others by a Montgomery County, Virginia district court. Virginia Special Justice Paul Barnett certified in an order that Cho " an imminent danger to himself as a result of mental illness," and directed that as a "Court-ordered Out-Patient he follow all recommended treatments." Following a psychiatric evaluation and medical exam which noted Cho's flat affect and depressed mood, he was ordered to undergo outpatient care and was released on December 14 2005. Some reports state that Cho is believed to have been taking psychiatric medications for depression, but there is no record of this.

Virginia state law on mental health disqualifications to firearms purchases, however, is worded slightly differently from the federal statute. So the form that Virginia courts use to notify state police about a mental health disqualification addresses only the state criteria, which list two potential categories that would warrant notification to the state police: someone who was “involuntarily committed” or ruled mentally “incapacitated.”

Because Cho was not involuntarily committed to a mental health facility as an inpatient, he was still legally eligible to buy guns under Virginia law. However, a Virginia state official and other law experts have argued that, under United States federal law, Justice Barnett's order meant that Cho had been "adjudicated as a mental defective" and was thus ineligible to purchase firearms under federal law.

Efforts by family to help Cho

Cho's mother, becoming increasingly concerned about Cho's inattention to classwork, his time spent out of the classroom and his antisocial behavior, sought help for Cho during summer 2006 from various churches throughout the Northern Virginia community. According to Dong Cheol Lee, minister of One Mind Church – a Presbyterian church in Woodbridge, Virginia, Cho's mother sought help from the church for Cho's problems. Lee added that " problem needed to be solved by spiritual power ... "hat's why she came to our church – because we were helping several people like him." Members of Lee's church even told Cho's mother that " was afflicted by demonic power and needed deliverance." However, before the church could start its work, Cho had to return to school to start his senior year.

Female escort encounter

A female escort named Chastity Frye told WSLS-TV of Roanoke, Virginia that Cho hired her for a private dance with his credit card in March 2007. The meeting took place in a Roanoke motel. She began dancing, but Cho did not seem to respond, so she stopped when Cho got up and went to the bathroom. When Cho returned, Frye told him that she was about to leave, but Cho told her to keep dancing, telling her that he had paid for the full hour. When Frye resumed dancing, Cho tried to get on her and touch her. She resisted by pushing Cho away, and Cho apparently respected her wishes. Frye claimed that the FBI spoke with her about Cho after tracking her down from Cho's credit card transactions. When Frye was asked for three words to describe Cho, she replied by describing him as "timid," "dorky," and "little pushy." The FBI made no comment to the media about the investigation concerning Frye's encounter with Cho.

Virginia Tech massacre

Part of a series of articles
on the
Virginia Tech
shooting
A photo of one of the commemorative stones at the memorial with flowers laid on top of it.
Location
Virginia Tech (Blacksburg, Virginia)
Perpetrator
Seung-Hui Cho
Victims
Related
Main article: Virginia Tech massacre

Around 7:15 a.m. EDT (11:15 UTC), Cho allegedly killed two students, Emily J. Hilscher and Ryan C. "Stack" Clark, on the fourth floor of West Ambler Johnston Hall, a high-rise co-educational dormitory. Although police had not stated positively at the time that Cho was the perpetrator of that shooting and the earlier one, forensic evidence confirmed that the same gun was used in both shooting incidents. Within the next two and a half hours, Cho returned to his room to re-arm himself and mailed a package containing pictures, digital video files and documents to NBC News. At approximately 9:45 a.m. EDT (13:45 UTC), Cho then crossed the campus to Norris Hall, a classroom building on the campus where, in a span of nine minutes, Cho shot dozens of people, killing 30 of them. As police breached the area of the building where Cho attacked the faculty and students, Cho committed suicide in Norris 211 with a gunshot to his temple. Cho's gunshot wound destroyed his face, frustrating the identification of his body for several hours. The police identified Cho by matching the fingerprints on the guns used in the shootings with immigration records. Before the shootings, Cho's only known connection to Norris Hall was as a student in the sociology class, Deviant Behavior, which met in a classroom on the second floor of the building.

Preparation

Weapons

Glock 19 semi-automatic pistol, one of the models of handguns used by Cho.

During February and March 2007, Cho began purchasing the weapons that he later used during the killings. On February 9 2007, Cho purchased his first handgun, a .22 caliber Walther P22 semi-automatic pistol, from TGSCOM Inc., a federally-licensed firearms dealer based in Green Bay, Wisconsin and the operator of the website through which Cho ordered the gun. TGSCOM Inc. shipped the Walther P22 to JND Pawnbrokers in Blacksburg, Virginia, where Cho completed the legally-required background check for the purchase transaction and took possession of the handgun. Cho bought a second handgun, a 9 mm Glock 19 semiautomatic pistol, on March 13 2007 from Roanoke Firearms, a licensed gun dealer located in Roanoke, Virginia. Cho was able to pass both background checks and successfully complete both handgun purchases after he presented to the gun dealers his U.S. permanent residency card, his Virginia driver's permit to prove legal age and length of Virginia residence and a checkbook showing his Virginia address, in addition to waiting the required 30-day period between each gun purchase. He was successful at completing both handgun purchases, even though he had failed to disclose information on the background questionnaire about his mental health that required court-ordered outpatient treatment at a mental health facility.

On March 22, 2007, Cho purchased two 10-round magazines for the Walther P22 pistol through eBay from Elk Ridge Shooting Supplies in Idaho. Based on a preliminary computer forensics examination of Cho's eBay purchase records, investigators suspected that Cho may have purchased an additional 10-round magazine on March 23 2007 from another eBay seller who sold gun accessories.

Cho also bought hollow point bullets, which cause more tissue damage than armor piercing bullets against unarmored targets. Along with a manifesto, Cho later sent a photograph of the hollow point bullets to NBC News with the caption "All the shit you've given me, right back at you with hollow points."

Motive

During the investigation, the police found a note in Cho's room in which he criticized "rich kids," "debauchery" and "deceitful charlatans." In the note, Cho continued by saying that "you caused me to do this." Early media reports also speculated that Cho was obsessed with fellow student Emily Hilscher and became enraged after his romantic overtures were rejected. Law enforcement investigators could not find evidence that Cho knew Hilscher . Cho and one of his victims, Ross Alameddine, attended the same English class during fall 2006. According to classmates enrolled in that class, including Justin Keyser, Alameddine tried to communicate with Cho with no success. Law enforcement officials found no evidence that Cho knew the other students and faculty members he killed during the rampage.

Aftermath

Investigation

Through ballistics examination, law enforcement investigators determined that Cho used the Glock 19 pistol during the attacks at the West Ambler Johnston dormitory and at Norris Hall on the Virginia Tech campus. Police investigators found that Cho fired 170 shots during the killing spree, with evidence technicians finding at least 17 spent ammunition magazines at the scene. During the investigation, federal law enforcement investigators found that the serial numbers were illegally filed off both the Walther P22 and the Glock 19 handguns used by Cho during the rampage. Investigators also learned that Cho practiced shooting during mid-March at a firing range in Roanoke, about 40 miles from the Virginia Tech campus.Cite error: A <ref> tag is missing the closing </ref> (see the help page). According to former FBI agent Brad Garrett, "This was no spur-of-the-moment crime. He's been thinking about this for several months prior to the shooting."

In the aftermath of the killing spree, Virginia Governor Timothy Kaine appointed a panel to investigate the campus shootings, with plans for the panel to submit a report of its findings in approximately two to three months. Governor Kaine also invited former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge to join the panel to "review Cho’s mental health history and how police responded to the tragedy." To help investigate and analyze the emergency response surrounding the Virginia Tech shootings, Governor Kaine hired the same company that investigated the Columbine massacre.

Reaction of Cho's family

Cho's older sister, Sun-Kyung Cho, a 2004 graduate of Princeton University who works as a contractor for the United States Department of State, prepared a statement on her family's behalf to apologize publicly for her brother's actions, in addition to lending prayers to the victims and the families of the wounded and killed victims. "This is someone that I grew up with and loved. Now I feel like I didn't know this person," she said in the statement issued through a North Carolina attorney. "We never could have envisioned that he was capable of so much violence." Cho's grandfather stated, "My grandson Seung-Hui was very shy. I can't believe he did such a thing."

Media package sent to NBC News

Screenshot from the MSNBC coverage of several videos Seung-Hui Cho sent to NBC News.
One of the self-portraits Cho included with manifesto sent to NBC News.

During the time period between the two shooting events on April 16, Cho visited a local post office near the Virginia Tech campus where he mailed a parcel to the New York headquarters of NBC News containing video clips, photographs and a manifesto explaining the reasons for his actions. The package, addressed from "A. Ishmael" as seen on an image of the USPS Express Mail envelope (incorrectly printed as "Ismail" by The New York Times) and apparently intended to be received on April 17, was delayed because of an incorrect ZIP code and street address. The words "Ismail Ax" were scrawled in red ink on Cho's arm.

Release of material

Upon receiving the package on April 18 2007, NBC contacted authorities and made the controversial decision to publicize Cho's communications by releasing a small fraction of what it received.. After pictures and images from the videos were broadcasted in numerous news reports, students and faculty from Virginia Tech, along with relatives of victims of the campus shooting, expressed concerns that glorifying Cho's rampage could lead to copycat killings. The airing of the manifesto and its video images and pictures were especially upsetting to those persons affected by the shootings. Peter Read, the father of Mary Read, one of the students who was killed by Cho during the rampage, asked the media to stop airing Cho's manifesto.

Police officials, who reviewed the video, pictures and Cho's manifesto, concluded that the contents of the media package had marginal value in helping them learn and understand why Cho committed the killings. Dr. Michael Welner, who also reviewed the materials, believed that Cho's rantings offer little insight into the mental illness that may have triggered his rampage. Dr. Welner stated that "These videos do not help us understand . They distort him. He was meek. He was quiet. This is a PR tape of him trying to turn himself into a Quentin Tarantino character."

During the April 24 2007 edition of the Oprah Winfrey Show, NBC News President Steve Capus stated NBC decided to show two minutes of 25 minutes of video, seven of 43 photographs and 37 sentences of 23 pages of written material or 5 of the 23 PDF files that were last modified at 7:24 AM, after the first shooting. He also stated that the content not shown included "over the top profanity" and "incredibly violent images." He expressed hope that the unreleased material is never made public.

Contents

File:Hammercho.jpg
Cho posing with a hammer in one of the pictures sent to NBC News.

In his manifesto, Cho mentioned the Columbine killers Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold with respect and denigrated former teachers John Mark Karr and Debra Lafave. In one of the videos, Cho said:

I didn’t have to do this. I could have left. I could have fled. But no, I will no longer run. It’s not for me. For my children, for my brothers and sisters that you fucked, I did it for them… When the time came, I did it. I had to.

Pete Williams, a MSNBC justice correspondent, opined that Cho lacked logical governance, suggesting that Cho was under severe emotional distress. In the video, Cho also railed against materialism and hedonism while, in another video, he compared himself to Jesus Christ, explaining that his death will influence generations of people.

Writings

Plays

In 2006, Cho wrote a short, profanity-laden one-act play entitled "Richard McBeef" in connection with a class assignment. The play focused on John, a 13-year-old boy whose father reportedly died in a boating accident, and Richard McBeef, John's stepfather and ex-football player. When Richard touches John during an attempt at a father-to-son talk, the boy abruptly claims that his stepfather is molesting him. John then accuses his stepfather Richard of murdering his father and repeatedly says that he will kill Richard. John, Richard and Sue (John's mother) are embroiled suddenly in a major argument. Richard retreats to his car to escape the conflict, but John, despite claiming repeatedly that Richard was abusing him, joins his stepfather in the car and harasses him. The play ends with John trying to shove a banana-flavored cereal bar into his stepfather's throat and Richard, hitherto a passive character, reacting "out of sheer desecrated hurt and anger" by "swinging a deadly blow" at the boy.

In a second play, "Mr. Brownstone," written by Cho for another class assignment, three 17-year-olds (John, Jane and Joe) sit in a casino while discussing their deep hatred for Mr. Brownstone, their 45-year-old mathematics teacher. The three characters claim that Mr. Brownstone mistreats them (using the phrase "ass-rape"). John wins a multi-million-dollar jackpot from one of the slot machines and Mr. Brownstone, amid volleys of profanity, reports to casino officials that the three characters were underage and had picked up the winning ticket. Mr. Brownstone tells the casino officials that he had won the jackpot and that the minors took it from him. "Mr. Brownstone" was also the name of a Guns N' Roses song about heroin, and one page from Cho's play consisted of lyrics from the song.

Reactions to writings

Edward Falco, a playwriting professor at Virginia Tech, has acknowledged that Cho wrote both plays in his class. The plays are less than 12 pages long and have several grammatical and typographical errors. Falco believed that Cho was drawn to writing because of his difficulty communicating orally. Falco said of the plays, "They're not good writing, but at least they are a form of communication." Another professor who taught Cho characterized his work as "very adolescent" and "silly", with attempts at "slapstick comedy" and "elements of violence."

Classmates believed "the plays, were really morbid and grotesque." Ian MacFarlane, Cho's former classmate, stated that, "hen we read Cho's plays, it was like something out of a nightmare. The plays had really twisted, macabre violence that used weapons I wouldn't have even thought of." When Stephen Davis, a senior who was also in Cho's class, read "Richard McBeef," he turned to his roommate and said "his is the kind of guy who is going to walk into a classroom and start shooting people." Anna Brown, another student in the class, sometimes joked with her friends that Cho was "the kind of guy who might go on a rampage killing."

Novelist Stephen King examined Cho's plays and wrote an essay for Entertainment Weekly. The essay read, in part:

For most creative people, the imagination serves as an excretory channel for violence: We visualize what we will never actually do (James Patterson, for instance, a nice man who has all too often worked the street that my old friend George used to work). Cho doesn't strike me as in the least creative, however. Dude was crazy. Dude was, in the memorable phrasing of Nikki Giovanni, just mean. Essentially there's no story here, except for a paranoid a--hole who went DEFCON-1. He may have been inspired by Columbine, but only because he was too dim to think up such a scenario on his own. On the whole, I don't think you can pick these guys out based on their work, unless you look for violence unenlivened by any real talent.

According to CBS News "Cho Seung-Hui's violent writing loner status fit the Secret Service shooter profile," referring to a 2002 U.S. Secret Service study that was conducted after the Columbine massacre, with violent writing cited as one of the most typical behavioral attributes of school shooters. The U.S. Secret Service concluded the study by saying that "he largest group of exhibited an interest in violence in their own writings, such as poems, essays or journal entries," while other school shooters showed an interest in violent video games, violent movies and violent books.

Users of Youtube created filmed adaptations of "Richard McBeef."

References

  1. Initial media reports referred to Cho's name as Cho Seung-Hui, with the surname "Cho" appearing ahead of the given name in accordance with Korean naming custom. However, subsequent statements by the family indicated the preference for the Western ordering of Cho's name as Seung-Hui Cho. Cho himself sometimes used the name Seung Cho. Editor's note on Cho's surname. (April 212007).The Washington Post. Retrieved on April 27 2007.
  2. "Virginia Tech Shooting: Gunman Identified As Cho Seung-hui". Post Chronicle. 2007-04-16. Retrieved 2007-04-16. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  3. Citing confidentiality concerns, no official count of the wounded has been released. "We Remember Those Lost on April 16, 2007". Virginia Tech. Retrieved 2007-04-26.
  4. ^ David Schoetz, Ned Potter, Richard Esposito, Pierre Thomas (April 17 2007). "Killer's Note: 'You Caused Me to Do This'". ABC News. Retrieved 2007-04-19. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  5. 'Multimedia manifesto' sent to NBC News - video clips
  6. "Virginia Tech Shooting: Cho Seung-Hui Suicide Note Found". Post Chronicle. 2007-04-17. Retrieved 2007-04-17. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Unknown parameter |Author= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  7. ^ Caparella, K. & Medina, R. (April 182007). Campus buzz: "I bet it was Cho." Philadelphia Daily News. Retrieved on April 18 2007.
  8. Ferenc, Leslie (April 19 2007). "Gunman took tortured path to massacre". Toronto Star. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  9. "Gunman's violent writings alarmed many". WFAA-TV (Dallas, TX). 2007-04-18. Retrieved 2007-04-18. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  10. Wilgoren, D., Schneider, H. & Pierre, R.E. (2007, April 17). Centreville Student was Va. Tech shooter. The Washington Post. Retrieved on April 17 2007.
  11. Sang-Hun, C. (April 202007). Relatives in South Korea say Cho was an enigma. The International Herald Tribune. Retrieved April 30 2007.
  12. "Bright Daughter, Brooding Son: Enigma in the Cho Household". Los Angeles Times. 2007-04-22. Retrieved 2007-04-22. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  13. "Reuters feed: gunman was a cold and quiet boy". Reuters. 2007-04-19. Retrieved 2007-04-25. {{cite news}}: line feed character in |title= at position 32 (help)
  14. ^ Cho, D. & Gardner, A. (2007, April 21). An isolated boy in a world of strangers. The Washington Post. Retrieved on April 22 2007]].
  15. "A Family's Shame in Korea". Time Magazine. 2007-04-22. Retrieved 2007-04-25. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  16. Demian McLean and Vivek Shankar. "Virginia Tech Strives to Move Beyond Shooting `Horror,' Reopen." Bloomberg. Last updated April 20 2007. Last accessed April 20 2007.
  17. "Virginia Korean community still reeling". Associated Press. 2007-04-22. Retrieved 2007-04-23. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
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