They should serve time!! and give way more than 100k! Hmm shooting in dorm and no one says anything about it or cancle class??? wtf?

How do the school administrators serve time? Wall Street is full of crooks, yet you don't see Alan Greenberg being sent off to Guantanamo.

Virginia Tech officials said they believed the first shootings were isolated.

At approximately 13,000 annual firearm homicides in the USA it is simply not possible for any of them to be isolated.

Like the weather in New England, if you don't like it just wait a minute.

Who in the World is ALAN GREENBERG ? . . . GREENBERG

Verbal dribblings from another victim of public education.

They walk among us.

(greenspan) ya think ?

@ED,

Both are spelled the same. If that was supposed to be an insult, then you sir have failed. And by the way, you have Google at you disposal. Look him up.

While everything seems much more obvious in retrospect, I remember on two occasions having lock-down drills in high school because businesses more than a mile away had been robbed. To shut down the campus when shootings in a dormitory occur seems like an obvious decision. It's not like the administration would have been reprimanded for it.

Okay, take back my last comment, my brain was somewhere else. Still, if Wall Street doesn't due time, then these administrators won't either..

And no, I am not stupid. I just forgot. I... ah, screw it, just get ready for the oopleheads to come back with their rude comments...

Wow. If they're guilty, then every single one of us is too.

Anyone that hasn't proven psychic abilities by predicting, and preventing a murder, is guilty. They're gonna need some bigger jails.

Neglgent? NEGLIGENT? How about criminally fraudulent? Who's going to jail? Only 30 people got gunned down...DEAD!!

THEY SHOULD OF LOCKED DOWN THE SCHOOL WHEN THE FIRST SHOOTINGS AT THE DORM HAPPENED! PERIOD. nothing more needs to be added to that statement! How many years has it been since the first school shooting?? 60?? There should of been policy written to protect the rest of the students. And there probably was policy and the office employees did not abide by it. So therefore people need to be help responsible.

Neglgent? NEGLIGENT? How about criminally fraudulent? Who's going to jail? Only 30 people got gunned down...DEAD!!

And the person that killed them is dead. I can understand wanting somebody to pay for this. But the ONLY guilty party isn't around to stand trial.

Crimes of various types happen all over the country every day. And in a vast majority of these, the criminal gets out of the area, because they don't want to get caught. And that's exactly what any reasoning person would expect a person to do after they shot somebody.

If the families are really only interested in justice and not the money as they say, then let's see them set up a scholarship fund with the award (assuming it isn't reduced to $100K). That would be a fitting way to remember their kids.

So, princess, did you "forget" that it's DO time, not "due" time?

My guess is that you meant Alan GreenSPAN; though I'm sure there are Alan Greenbergs out there, we generally don't associate them with Wall Street.

Stupid? Well, I'll just let you prove it some more . . .

@WilliamOfRites

Anti 2nd amendment fools always inflate gun homicide numbers, you should try visiting the website of the organization that posts actual data- the FBI! They report the numbers as half of whatever propaganda you are referencing.

And your assertion that all gun violence is linked because of the qty is absurd! By your monkey logic the 33,808 deaths caused by vehicular crashes in 2009 (US Census) are all linked and should be blamed on the car.

2 shootings are tragic but don't indicate that a shooting spree is about to happen, several hours of no shooting after a double homicide is an indicator that there isn't going to be a spree. College administrators are not qualified to predict a spree, why isn't anyone blaming the police who investigated the initial shootings- at least they are somewhat trained to interpret violent behavior.

Typo, again, on my part. I did mean Alan Greenspan, @Are, but my mind was off somewhere else.

And let me prove that I am stupid? Well, that sure is love and toleration, isn't it?

attorney for state uses a defense of ''unforeseeable ''. the school is responsible to plan for the ''unforeseeable''. not acceptable to me.

Are eh?--The young lady was probably conflating Alan Greenspan with Allen Ginsberg. This is not a characteristic of stupidity, as I doubt that many people have even heard of Allen Ginsberg (though he was a major author).

In any case, if I started picking apart the grammar and spelling of everyone on this thread, I'd be at it all day. In fact, ED-3553337 was probably trying for the word "drivel," as there really isn't such a phrase as "verbal dribblings." (There is verbal diarrhea--and it appears that Ed conflated the phrase "verbal diarrhea" with the word "drivel"--except that he misheard it--to get "verbal dribblings.")

A typo doesn't prove much about intelligence--attention to detail, perhaps. What troubles me is the child's refusal to Google the man's name herself to check and see if she was wrong. But, at least she did come back and admit fault--which is something.

Hi granny,

I understand people like you that want to create a risk-free environment. I don't think it is ever possible, but I understand your hope for one. That said, that which is unforseeable is, by definition, that which you cannot be negligent for not forseeing, since forseeing the action and then doing nothing reasonable to prevent it is what is needed to prove negligence.

So, if it was forseeable, then the school should have taken proper action. If they didn't then they are negligent. If it wasn't forseeable then the school could not possibly take proper action since they would have no idea what action to take, and they can't be negligent. In this case I think it is most likely that no one could have forseen the actions of Cho, and after the first two shootings and the school not knowing who did them, or why, I don't think they could have concluded that an immediate lockdown of the campus would be necessary to prevent the predictable and reasonable outcome that Cho would then go on to commit mass murder. One simply does not follow the other.

At least until it happened in this case it didn't follow the other.

Princess, you made me chuckle reading your posts. I knew what you meant but it still was funny. Sometimes we type phonetically. You'll do fine and you aren't stupid.

Howdy beanathome,

One question...conflating and conflated?

The original problem was that the Chief of Police and Campus administration allowed themselves to be comfortable with an assumption not supported by facts: The initial shootings were the result of some relationship dispute and that the perpetrator was known. Police assets were used to scour the Interstates and surrounding areas looking for the wrong suspect. If this unprofessional, administration supported, if not actually unilaturally decided conclusion had not been reached and proper police and safety procedures had been followed, there would probably been no further loss of life. What the Virginia Tech administration is guilty of is covering up their role in the decision making process. What the Campus Police Chief failed to do was to follow correct police procedure and possibly allowing the campus administration to overule his police authority.

unilaterally

probably would have been no further loss of life.

People should stop commenting on spelling because they don't get it right either.

What do you get when you "conflate" "dribblings" and "toleration"?

If you make GOOGLE a verb, should you capitalize it?

Have some toleration and argue about the article. Just remember, I screw up at my job a few times, and I am sure you do too. The same bureacracy that we protect and entrust our children to is the group that didn't know what to do when some kid shot people in a dorm. I don't know if I would have made the connection to more danger if I was there at that time (it wasn't as pervasive as it is now). I think people need to accept some responsbility for living here. It "ain't" perfect, but it is a lot better than growing up in many other countries. Heck, in India, they don't look twice if they run you off the "Most Dangerous Road on Earth". If some poor guy runs me over because he's looking at his phone, should I sue him for everything he's got? I've looked at my phone while driving. YOU ARE NOT GUARANTEED PROTECTION IN ANY COUNTRY. Still, you have live and get out and do things. Sorry.

How about the University pay the families exactly the same amount they paid their big lawyers to try and get them out of this. I am sure that they spent hundreds of thousands of dollars or even millions to their attorneys.

So they are gonna put a cap on the price of a student's life at $100,000.00. A good education costs more than that. This IS NOT a frivolous law suit. It may not be completely justified but it is certainly NOT frivolous. I wonder how some of you would feel had it been one of your loved ones that was gunned down and slaughtered by this animal?

Archie Bunker was right....."we should arm all the passengers."

This is total crap.

When do these grieving parents sue the gun manufacturers? After all, the industries which produce these weapons of mass destruction need to be held accountable for their role in all this.

Any organization with a written down disaster preparedness plan is ONLY prepared if the actual disaster mirrors the plan. Otherwise you get to make it up as you go along.

These jurors are idiots. If 5 gun slinging man men kicked down the door to your home......right now.......what is your disaster preparedness plan? You don't have one....so shut your mouth.

@Rich - the first shooting WAS on campus, in Slusher Hall (dormitory.)

Ryan: You touched on the crux of the matter. We must remembger that we are all looking at the events with 20/20 hindsight, and have had plenty of time to digest the chain of events as they played out that day. School administrators and first responders had no such luxury...they had to react to a dynamic situation occurring in real time. The fact that they didn't react with 100% accuracy and do everything right should really be no surprise.

Newsflash! Someone on campus is shot by gunman. The man is still loose on campus.

YOU ALERT THE STUDENTS AND STAFF! IMMEDIATELY!

Who really needs to be found negligent is the gun "rights" lobby, the NRA, and every idiot gun nut in this nation that wants these weapons to be legal. These people are responsible for this and every other gun massacre in this nation. These primitive, backwoods, inbred neanderthals who believe that their guns are more important than life itself need to be shipped off to the looney bin and heavily medicated. The only people who need to own guns, especially high power assault rifles, are police and the military. That's it. And before any of you start pontificating about the Second Amendment, don't. When the Founding Fathers wrote the Constitution there were no assault rifles anything like it. If you want to own a weapon and claim the Second Amendment as your legal basis for doing so, then you can have a single shot, manual loaded musket with a flint lock. That was about as high tech as guns were in 1789 when the Constitution was ratified.

And a gun was used for hunting, protecting your family, land, and belongings. It was mainly for PROTECTION.

It was for defense, and not offense.

Some of these posts are unbelievable. Any of you ever been to a university campus? Usually many buildings spread out over 50 acres or more. It's not like a high school where it's easy to lock down a facility. And what kind of warning were the campus police/administration supposed to give? We found some people shot but don't know who did it so everyone is a suspect?????

All it takes is money to provide the most secure environment possible (increased tuition) but even if you had a cop standing in every room in every building bad things would still happen.

The blame should be on the psycho that did this.

Nobody seems to remember they had a suspect in custody. The girl who was shot in Ambler Johnson had been shooting previously with her boyfriend, who was on the Va Tech campus at the time and the Police thought they had their man. That's what was likely reported to the administrators; "there was a shooting in the dorm and we have someone in custody".

What about that says "Lockdown the school".

The negligence wasn't contained in the day of the shooting. It was contained in the fact that

(1) Cho had been showing signs of this well before he did it to anyone

(2) Cho had been ordered by a court to get psychiatric attention after a previous incident

(3) Cho never did, and the court never followed up

(4) The failure to follow up on court-ordered psychiatric attention was not included as part of the background check to purchase a firearm

P.S. I was at Virginia Tech that day. It's a lot different being there than what you read in the news.

Alan Greenberg was the chairman of the executive committee of Bear Stearns during it's collapse in 2008. He had also been CEO and chairman of the Board. After the sale of Bear Stearns to JPMorgan-Chase, he continued to work for JPMorgan. He was repeatedly on the Financial World list of 100 highest paid executives. So yes he is one of the Wall Streeters who should have been criminally prosecuted. Posters show their own ignorance when they attack others without doing their own research.

This verdict is ridiculous. Virginia Tech has more than 23,000 students and a 2600 acre campus. To think that universiry officials could protect every student from a deranged gunman is ridiculous. And least we forget-most of the notification systems that are CURRENTLY in place at universities came about as a result of the VT shootings. They were not in place anywhere at the time. Also we should be aware that a "lock-down" of the VT campus would be equivalent to locking down an entire town. Anyone who has been on a college campus during a tornado alert can also readily observe that half the students will not go to the designated safe area but will head to their dorms or cars as soon as class is interupted. College students are adults-the teachers and administrators can not make them do anything.

Nobody seems to remember they had a suspect in custody. The girl who was shot in Ambler Johnson had been shooting previously with her boyfriend, who was on the Va Tech campus at the time and the Police thought they had their man. That's what was likely reported to the administrators; "there was a shooting in the dorm and we have someone in custody".

What about that says "Lockdown the school".

The negligence wasn't contained in the day of the shooting. It was contained in the fact that

(1) Cho had been showing signs of this well before he did it to anyone

(2) Cho had been ordered by a court to get psychiatric attention after a previous incident

(3) Cho never did, and the court never followed up

(4) The failure to follow up on court-ordered psychiatric attention was not included as part of the background check to purchase a firearm

P.S. I was at Virginia Tech that day. It's a lot different being there than what you read in the news.

Princess...

You Are an idiot!!!!!

And what exactly would a "lock down" do. He was on the inside and the only one with a gun........

yeah when only the criminal or the crazy guy has a gun well for the most part he wins.. so legalize conceal and carry in all states. When everyone might have a gun the crooks andcrazys dont have that upper hand

And what exactly would a "lock down" do. He was on the inside and the only one with a gun........

The first two shootings were at West Ambler Johnston hall,he then went and changed clothes then went to the post office.two hours later he entered Norris Hall and committed those shootings.

In other words,they could have locked down everything.

Jolly, Are city neighborhoods locked down whenever someone is killed or shots fired.

Yoy want punitive damages to be sky high as well? How droll, nothing like creating an even higher tuition because of the settlement.

And why can't they sue the manufacturer's of the guns? Congress said so.

And they shouldn't be able to sue gun manufactures. If we go there then you have to allow sueing of manufacturers of kitchen knives, cars, baseball bats ect. The tool didn't kill them, it was the nut behind it.

$100k seems like a small price for a human life. But if it is one, it is one too many. School administrators and safety personnel should also face prosecution.

@PGWP-what bizarro world are you living in, guns don't kill people, they are merely tools.

@PGWP-what bizarro world are you living in, guns don't kill people, they are merely tools.

@Bart Conner

Sorry PGWP

lumpy12: Hey, instead of bringing MORE guns onto campus and creating MORE possibilities for people to get hurt (can you say "friendly fire" or "crossfire"?), how about we close the loophole that allows mentally deranged and dangerous people from buying firearms?

There's actually a database out there that tracks these people. The only problem is, gun sellers and law enforcement aren't allowed to access it, because groups like the NRA constantly whine how it would be "violating people's civil rights".

I understand your position, but I'm so SICK of hearing people say the only answer is to put more guns in play. It's a self-perpetuating system: keep loopholes open, some nut goes on a rampage, argue for relaxed regulations or MORE loopholes, and repeat.

Look at Columbine. A girl with a fake ID bought the guns those boys used because of loopholes that allowed gunshows to sell weapons without background checks, loopholes kept open by the NRA in the first place. Afterward, what happened? The NRA came out and said it was proof that we needed to start arming the faculties. No mea culpa, no acknowledgement of wrongness, no admission that what they championed as a "just cause" for "civil rights" backfired... just another excuse to put more guns out there.

Get the guns out of the hands of the whackos and psychos, and maybe this won't happen again.

Reading some of these posts... just how long should the lock down have lasted? Seems ron wants it to last even when the perp is known to be gone...

So at least two plus hours. But wait if he came back 4 hrs later should the lock down still have been on? How about if he came back the next day? I guess it should stay on until the perp is caught. No wait. he's presumed innocent until proven guilty. So lock it down until he is found guilty. Otherwise there should be liability on someone's hands. Anyone's hands except the perps.

Let's see lock down means stay in your dorms. Stay out of public areas. Hummm he shot people in the dorms. That sounds like the smart thing to do make sure everyone is where he is known to shoot people.

Hey CDevil,

I think your facts are all fouled up. If someone presented a false ID in order to buy a firearm then there is no loophole to close, as there is no loophole which allows people to fraudulently obtain a firearm. And if someone is a straw buyer, a crime, there again is no loophole to close. You've described two crimes for which there is no loophole, yet you blame loopholes for allowing the crime. Hmmmm.

As far as a database tracking the mentally deranged...if one is adjudicated as incapacitated then buying a firearm is already illegal, and the background check which does occur should pick up the status and stop the sale. Again, there is no loophole to close. If someone is NOT declared mentally unstable, and sorry but your affidavit would be insufficient proof, then the sale should go through. Your problem shouldn't be with the NRA, it should be with people who are violating the laws already on the books.

DebraRedhead--Funny, as the rule on campuses these days is that, in the thread of imminent violence, there is to be a lockdown and evacuation.

Lockdown means that the doors are locked and people take shelter in place--evacuation means that people are taken out of a building in which the violence is either taking place or in which emergency services expect that it could take place.

So, yeah--lockdown and evacuation is the standard drill for imminent violence. If you have a problem with that, maybe you should get into emergency management and teach everyone why it is that they are so foolish.

Universities (and I've worked at several) now have emergency notification procedures--a mass email is sent out, text messages are sent out, and automatic phone calls are made to warn people of a threat of violence. The threat stays in place until the perp is caught or until law enforcement calls for a stand-down. I've gotten at least three email/phone calls about possible violence at my local campus since the Virginia Tech thing. It turns out that they weren't necessary--and the perps were caught without violence later on--but it sure is nice that they have methods in place these days.

Virginia Tech was a wake-up call. Other campuses have benefitted--but VT was remiss in not at least warning people to be on the look-out for someone who was armed. How difficult is it to send out an email? Some students might have chosen to leave campus--and that really should have been their opt.

Bart Conner,

Lets sue Louisville Slugger Baseball Bats makers next, how about Schrade Knife Makers, how about ACME Brick Co., or Chevrolet you know the one the Drunk was driving, or How about the guy's Mom and Dad for giving the lil' Bastard Birth... Geez the list could go on forever... Give me money, oh I forgot its not about money, its about the Loved One... Give me a BREAK...

Nobody sues makers of bats or knives because nobody can commit mass murders with bats or knives. If all the VA Tech killer had was a bat or a knife, he might have killed one or two, before he would have been taken down. And the university would not be liable for one or two killings, would not have had notice. The problem here is the university had notice of the first killing, and failed to take any action.

A firearm is an exponential increase in the ability to kill. That is why they are regulated, as opposed to bats or knives.

Comprende?

Tom,

It still makes about as much sense... And evidently you have not seen someone who knows how to use a knife use one... Surely you have read about cars being driven into crowds of people..

Comprende?

There were just over 11,400 firearm homocides in the US last year. That comes out to 0.00003563%. Drama anyone?

Nobody seems to remember they had a suspect in custody. The girl who was shot in Ambler Johnson had been shooting previously with her boyfriend, who was on the Va Tech campus at the time and the Police thought they had their man. That's what was likely reported to the administrators; "there was a shooting in the dorm and we have someone in custody".

What about that says "Lockdown the school".

The negligence wasn't contained in the day of the shooting. It was contained in the fact that

(1) Cho had been showing signs of this well before he did it to anyone

(2) Cho had been ordered by a court to get psychiatric attention after a previous incident

(3) Cho never did, and the court never followed up

(4) The failure to follow up on court-ordered psychiatric attention was not included as part of the background check to purchase a firearm

P.S. I was at Virginia Tech that day. It's a lot different being there than what you read in the news.

Not entirely accurate. A judge decided to commit him to an outpatient facility instead of in-patient.

http://articles.cnn.com/2007-04-19/us/gun.laws_1_gun-dealer-gun-laws-gun-buyers?_s=PM:US

Mental health clinicians can not ethically or legally break confidentiality of their patients. Only privileged others are allowed to know about an individual's diagnosis, treatment, and what is discussed in session.

As decided in Tarasoff v. Regents of the University of California, confidentiality cannot be breached unless an individual states a clear plan and intent with clear targets. Unless he explicitly told someone "I'm going to go on a shooting rampage on the Virginia Tech campus and I already have the gun(s) to do it", there's nothing you can legally do.

This is no practitioner's fault. There are plenty of people who suffer from mental illness that are never a danger to anyone else and who never form such tragic plans as what happened at Virginia Tech. It's a shame that you're perpetuating the idea that anyone who suffers from a mental illness is a danger or threat to society.

they need to quit letting these freakin foreigners in our country..

Agreed. VT didn't expect there would be a shooting to this effect, more often then not a person will flee the scene of their crimes to avoid capture. The fact that this happened was a horrible horrible mistake, one that the school administrations will learn from, but to say that their child may still be alive if the first two shootings (of which happened HOURS before the massacre occurred) had put the school on lock down is asinine. NO one expected this, no one goes around expecting it, and the fact that it happened stunned people for months.

The question is not whether it was reasonable to predict the second killing, the question was whether the school officials gave out the proper notifications to students. There are procedures to emergency situations, and the officials did not do the correct actions in notifying the students of what had just happened, just in case. The students have a right to know what is going on in the campus. For whatever reason, it was decided it was not necessary, and that was the wrong decision. The important thing here is that even if nothing had happened, the students had a right to know. They should have alerted students, erred in the side of caution. They did not know the person would do more damage, but they should have suspected or at the very least told the students. The fact is that these deaths could have been prevented. They did not pull the trigger, of course not, but they did not protect the students by not giving them the full information. As school officials, they did not do their job in releasing all information, they did not fully protect the students with all their power, and they should be held accountable for their incorrect and dishonest decisions. It was all a mistake, but what they could have prevented, they did not. That it was it comes down to.

These students are adults - not high school kids. Lock down a whole college campus, it would be impossible!!!! It is a very large facility with various buildings. It's unfortunate but this award will not do anything to bring their child back, but it will keep others from getting an education because tuition, fees, and taxes go up.

Greta - you are so right!!!! Recently I overheard the school administrators conspiring to prevent women from getting birth control and forcing people to have an id to vote and drilling for oil will not help our gasoline supply and that there was a shooter on the grassy knoll and Roswell ...

Things happen all the time, especially at colleges and other large places.

NO one could predict a super rare event like this........

GRETA---how was their first reaction to cover it up? Just wondering where you pulled that gem from

@#6.3 I can answer that for you.

I both live near the university and work in local law enforcement so know much more about what happened that day than many people who just saw the news stories. When the first two shooting victims were found the Tech police department and school administration tried to keep it an internal manner and away from the media and the other law enforcement agencies.

Protocol requires that in an incident such as the initial shootings that all surrounding localities should have been notified, the state police should have been called in, and the area should have been swarming with patrol cars searching for an armed man on campus. Instead they waited until the gunman started his killing spree in Norris hall to notify non Tech law enforcement which both gave Cho time to commit his atrocity and delayed the response time of backup units as no other agencies had any units on campus at the time. A "lockdown" was of less relevance than the fact that basic standard investigation and response procedure was not followed after the initial shootings. Campus police should have been supplemented immediately with local and state police but were not because Tech wanted to keep the situation quiet and out of the press as long as possible.

It's in no way guaranteed but is very likely that if Tech administrators had followed the correct path and brought in outside plice search units and patrol vehicles that Cho would not have been able to cross the campus and barricade himself in that building before starting his rampage. It's simple numbers, 20 campus police can't cover the same area as well as 200+ combined units could have and therefore were unable to adequately ensure the safety of those on campus while a known threat existed.

Amusedin~ Investigators from the VT police AND Blacksburg police arrived for the first shootings. Outside police where brought in from the very get go and where searching for another person they labeled a 'person of interest' in the original shootings.

tell that to the dead kids parent NoryC. I am sure they will appreciate all the concern. The people in charge were greedy and didn't want the press or they would have locked it down. They were found guilty so what would you expect them to do now? Not a have a press plan place? Get real. They are CYA as fast as they can .

Exactly yes Virgina Tech may be doing the right thing now and have proper safety guidlines, however, if the school had been this careful the whole time Seung-Hui Cho may not have done as much damage. Virgina Tech and police dropped the ball they were to busy thinking about the bad rep the school would get after the first 2 murders instead of focusing on the safety of the students.

Jolly, et al,

Before Cho went on this killing spree no one seriously considered such an event likely. This is the part about negligence I think people like you continually fail to appreciate. For one to be negligent there had to be a reasonable expectation that the event at issue would happen and that nothing proper was done to stop it. Nobody, including both of you here, thought it was reasonable to expect that a shooting crime at a university would then snowball into a mass killing at the university BEFORE it first happened. You all have gone far into fantasy land.

Rich,

Are you a re-re how can cops and school officalls stand there and be like "o well we have a murder on campus looks like domestic issues so no big deal lets not tell the students or go on lock down just to be safe, but lets alert our family members and all the people we love, but everyone else o well sh#& happens" seriously come on the school dropped the ball they knew there was some kind of danger i mean come on commone sense tells us that if someone killed 2 people and is still lose the situation is NOT SAFE. No they couldnt know 30 more lives would be lost but they new some sort of danger was there

To any of you that think that locking down the VT campus is easy, THINK AGAIN. I highly suggest you go to www.vt.edu and pull up the campus map. I know that campus well. VERY well. I know the buildings and dorms very well. Locking down a campus that size is NOT easy.

Chu went back to his dorm after the 1st 2 murders in West Ambler Johnston. If the lockdown had come during that time, he would have gone after the people in the dorm, rather than at Norris.

When I was at VT, we had a suscide by gun in one of the dorms. A vet who was despondent over his grades and possibly losing his scholarship. And this was in the 70s.

Yes, the notifications should have been made sooner. BUT knowing the campus as I do, it's not as easy as you think to lock it down.

Not in it for the money but how much are they asking for?

They can get up to 100,000 since they did not ask for money at the start of the trail and this was not about money for them. If they would of pressed chargers asking for a payment for whatever reason than they could set their own personal limit of money to recieve. Also thinking about this logoically if the parents were in it for the money it be much easier to threaten with a lawsuit get whatever hush money the school offer up and never take it to court. The school would of happily given hush money over court that would damage their already questionable rep.

If the Money isn't the Key issue, then I suggest they donate the money to a worthy cause. I bet they don't. It's all about Money.

akl,

Do you think the fact that the university didn't settle for such a paltry sum, just 200k plus lawyer fees probably, and instead took this to trial in any way indicates their sincere belief that the university had done nothing negligent? Is it possible that the jury acted more on emotion than on reality in this case?

O no doubt the jury was based on emotion instead of fact there is no doubt about that, but to say that a mother who lost her child is money hungry is rude and disrespectful

Obviously a jury disagrees with your assessment.

Could not have said it better myself- why should the school pay for this

Lunatic - I agree, once again, with your assessment. There is no way to say for sure that the actions of the school made the situation any better or worse (for example, they could just as easily be blamed for causing an unnecessary panic if it really was an isolated incident and someone was killed in a stampede.)

What's the right call when faced with an urgent situation? You can never know.

Lunatic, we are in the society today of "It's someone's fault". Today it's VA Tech. Who knows who it will be tomorrow.

The Person responsible is the one firing the gun. Maybe the school should have warned the students sooner, but would that have accomplished anything? No one will ever know.

Janine - here's a blog article I wrote about three years ago which you may find interesting:

http://www.halfbakedlunatic.com/post/2008/12/06/I-want-to-see-a-Personal-Responsibility-constitutional-amendment.aspx

That's probably because of what happened at Va Tech in 2007.

I had lock down drills before Tech 2007 we had them back in 2000 the school dropped the ball simple as that

@bscol, I went to a local state university in NJ. We had a suspected shooting and the entire campus was shut down, turned out there was no shooting luckily. This was in 2001. Heck, they shut the campus down once because there was a bear loose somewhere on campus.

baloney. It was greed and hoping the problem was isolated. When it blew up, now everyone is sorry! Sure, no problem, I will fix it.

exactly. if you have to fix blame, better go back to the first sign of trouble.

Most all of it....As will all suits and class action deals....Family will get 20.00 and a kiss.......

If taken on a contingency fee, it would be 40% or less. And generally, it's 1/3 of the award.

File a suit, you will most likely win. There is no more accountability in our socialist country anymore.

Skeeter, with that logic and in todays world you'll probably win your case.

Absolutely; its always cheaper to settle than to go to trial

o no they didnt wait ten minutes they waited 2 hours then he came back shot 30more people and even then they didnt call a lock down most students only found out because of the internet on their smart phones or when walking to their next class and were told what happen

Princess Celestia-When a gunman comes onto a campus and starts shooting, you automatically lock it down, not wait ten minutes to see what happens

I'm sure the rest are as anxious as I am to hear. What credentials do you have that you can make this blanket statement?

When people get shot and an armed man is walking around, you don't panic, you do what you can to save people. They waited too long to do anything (two hours, apparently, so disregard my allotted time), and that left too many dead.

What credentials do you have- which do you. It is my opinion, what I think, what I saw happen. By your account, I can't say that the Iraq War was wrong, because I wasn't there when the Saddam statue fell.

When people get shot and an armed man is walking around, you don't panic, you do what you can to save people

There was NO indication that an armed man was still walking around after shooting the first two, by all speculation and theory, he had fled the scene and was on the run.

They waited too long to do anything (two hours, apparently, so disregard my allotted time), and that left too many dead.

There was NO indication that Cho would return to campus to start a murdering rampage after what was assumed to be a domestic crime. There where indications that the first two where targeted specifically and again...the gunman had fled.

West Ambler (the hall where the first two shootings occurred) WAS on lock down for a while and then lifted. When the first shootings of the massacre happened, (in a completely different building) the police responded immediately only to find that Cho had chained the doors shut, they could NOT get in. Read the time line of what happened, and tell me exactly what you would have done different. Oh wait you can't, you already know what happened so it would be moot. No one, not even you, would have expected a massacre of 30 random people, from what was thought to be a simple domestic crime where the gunman fled.

Princess Celestia-By your account, I can't say that the Iraq War was wrong, because I wasn't there when the Saddam statue fell.

Typical. I never said or implied anything of the sort. You, not I, are the one professing your expertise on the subject. I merely asked what gave you the right to do so. Hind-sight is amazing, isn't it?

There was a shootout in my neighborhood over ten years ago. Police cars blocked all streets within a 2 mile perimeter for several hours. I had to go to a friends house as I was not allowed to enter the perimeter.

And...what is the moral to the story?

I agree Drew... assign the blame to the responsible party. The guy that pulled the trigger.

But oh no he is a victim of his environment... so blame someone in the environment (just make sure whoever you blame has deep pockets otherwise it wasn't really their fault.) Right?

Why is personal responsibility such a disdained thing in American society?

More like shame on them for not acting fast enough. I you are in charge, you can't panic and run to the corner. You take command and keep everyone else safe.

Oh, and that name might not sit well if a moderator comes by. Just sayin'.

SHAME ON YOU VT for not predicitng the unpredictable

After Columbine, all bets were off.

VT had 2 hours!!! in between the shootings to put the school on lock down 2 hours!!! They messed up they were to busy worrying about the reputation of the school and the money it collects for the community then focusing on the students plain and simple.

@WilliamOfRites: From the first shot at Columbine, it was obvious the gunmen were there to kill as many as possible. At Tech, the first two murders were isolated, and authorities initially considered them to be a "domestic dispute" or "lover's quarrel". If Cho had continued through West A.J. from room to room, I'm sure the reaction from the university would have been very different - - but he immediately left the dorm, what the authorities considered to be consistent with the scenario they were seeing.

DISPITE the fact he left the safest thing for the campus as a logical human would be to go on lockdown! it happen on campus he could have come back the school didnt protect the students. We have been on lockdown many times at UNM just for our safety until the suspect was got and this was in 2005. The school didnt protect its students

After Columbine, all bets were off.

After the Wright Brothers, everyone should have known about 9/11.

Sounds just as ludicrous doesn't it? Oh, boy. Here come the conspirators.

And how exactly is the ACLU to blame for this, other than a pathetic attempt on your part to smear them? Besides, if the ACLU was so powerful, how did they not prevent the new ultrasound requirement in Virginia? And I doubt the ACLU supported the 100K maximum either, which reeks of the anti-lawsuit/regulation crowd. Think, then post, OK?

Maybe not the ACLU exactly but the idea that the concept of confidentiality maybe has gone a bit too far. It was necessary to install protections, especially for mental health clients who still encounter a great deal of stigma, so that information was not lightly or carelessly floated where it should not have been. However, disclosure versus privacy should reign when safety is an issue as it clearly was in this case.

Boy, how much spam detection did you have to go through to post that?

At least I find it funny...

It amazes me how many Monday Morning quarterbacks we have here. Princess explain to me the logistics of locking down a campus of 60,000 students? Do you flip a switch and all the doors are locked. No. It amazes me me that everyone wants to post a comment and have never worked on a college campus. Locking down the campus does not constitute safety. What if you lock the gunman in the building? The guilty party is dead. Too many times in society we want to find someone to blame for everything that happens. Sometimes bad things happen and we can not predict all the evil in the world. The fact is no one is truly safe. It was Cho's mission to kill people and he did. Locking the campus would not have made a difference. My prayers go out to the family and the staff that had to deal with this tragedy.

Perhaps call in law enforcement, or at least some kind of security? they were sitting ducks there, and the campus administrators did nothing. Shame on them.

Princess~ Where do you get this information that security and law enforcement wasn't called? First, I work at VT, I didn't work there at the time of the shootings however I know for a fact both campus security and police where there investigating the first two murders. All evidence showed that the shooter left and it was a 'domestic' crime. At NO point was there EVER any indication that Cho would come back to campus and start killing. At NO point in this town would anyone ever think that could happen. No one assumes this type of violence will occur in their backyard. When the shootings started everyone was in shock and disbelief.

How easy do you think it is to close down a campus? There are multiple entrances and exits into and out of, as well as dozens of side roads, and that's assuming they are driving, it's just as easy to walk out. In lock down the students would have been there anyways as they wouldn't be allowed to leave the area they where in, he was kicking down locked and barricaded doors. They would have been sitting ducks then too.

Much like Hokie says, it's amazing how people and judge and assume they know better when it already happened. The town that VT is in, and its surrounding towns are fairly peaceful, we certainly don't have the kind of crimes that occurred here, and from all indications given, the murderer left the first two killings. No one expected what would happen several hours later and now that it has, they have taken all the steps they can to try to prevent it from happening again.

I completely agree.

Really? So a crazy person murders people in the dorm, and Virginia Tech doesn't even bother to notify people on the campus? It seems as if the first thing they would do is tell people to return to their rooms and lock their doors. From the comments, I'm assuming most people didn't bother to read the facts before posting.

This was about the campus murders that occurred hours later because the school didn't bother to say anything.

"Jurors were charged with deciding whether Tech police and administrators could have reasonably foreseen a danger to the campus after the dorm shootings. Thirty more killings followed hours later at Norris Hall, a classroom building."

You can tell from most of the intelligent comments, WE the people are sick of the fukin lawyers, screwing over our nation and taking money from US.

Don't entirely blame the lawyers. Blame the people who will sue over anything. Like when that couple sued Dunkin' Donuts over their sausages being too hot when they bought one for their toddler. Moral of the story: don't be an idiot parent.

@Princess Celestia quoting your first post:

How do the school administrators serve time? Wall Street is full of crooks, yet you don't see Alan Greenberg being sent off to Guantanamo.

Dear, our entire government is populated by crooks, thieves, and liars. Wall Street, Alan Greenspan, or any of the rest could not have gotten by with what they got by with, that being the greatest theft offense in human history bar none, without the full knowledge and cooperation of our revered "leaders" both sides of the aisle. You would need a prison the size of the state of Texas to hold them all.

Hey, I live in Texas, and we are already saving you from a massive lunatic. His name is Rick Perry.