August 30, 2007
"Indications": Virginia Tech Killings
~Throughout today I heard a number of experts on tv separately use the term "indications" (or indicators) when talking about the Virginia Tech Shootings. I don't remember hearing what were any of the "indications" to which they were referring.
>here's a few:
"1. Cho exhibited signs of mental health problems during his childhood. His middle and high schools responded well to these signs and, with his parents' involvement, provided services to address his issues. He also received private psychiatric treatment and coun-seling for selective mutism and depression.
In 1999, after the Columbine shootings, Cho’s middle school teachers observed suicidal and homicidal ideations in his writings and recommended psychiatric counseling, which he received. It was at this point that he received medication for a short time. Although Cho’s parents were aware that he was troubled at this time, they state they did not specifically know that he thought about homicide shortly after the 1999 Columbine school shooting.
2. During Cho's junior year at Virginia Tech, numerous incidents occurred that were clear warnings of mental instability. Although various individuals and departments within the university knew about each of these incidents, the university did not intervene effectively. No one knew all the information and no one connected all the dots.
3. University officials in the office of Judicial Affairs, Cook Counseling Center, campus police, the Dean of Students, and others explained their failures to communicate with one another or with Cho’s parents by noting their belief that such communications are prohibited by the federal laws governing the privacy of health and education records. In reality, federal laws and their state counterparts afford ample leeway to share information in potentially dangerous situations.
4. The Cook Counseling Center and the university’s Care Team failed to provide needed support and services to Cho during a period in late 2005 and early 2006. The system failed for lack of resources, incorrect interpretation of privacy laws, and passivity. Records of Cho’s minimal treatment at Virginia Tech’s Cook Counseling Center are missing.
5. Virginia’s mental health laws are flawed and services for mental health users are inadequate. Lack of sufficient resources results in gaps in the mental health system including short term crisis stabilization and comprehensive outpatient services. The involuntary commitment process is challenged by unrealistic time constraints, lack of critical psychiatric data and collateral information, and barriers (perceived or real) to open communications among key professionals.
6. There is widespread confusion about what federal and state privacy laws allow. Also, the federal laws governing records of health care provided in educational settings are not entirely compatible with those governing other health records.
7. Cho purchased two guns in violation of federal law. The fact that in 2005 Cho had been judged to be a danger to himself and ordered to outpatient treatment made him ineligible to purchase a gun under federal law.
8. Virginia is one of only 22 states that report any information about mental health to a federal database used to conduct background checks on would-be gun purchasers. But Virginia law did not clearly require that persons such as Cho—who had been ordered into out-patient treatment but not committed to an institution—be reported to the data-base. Governor Kaine’s executive order to report all persons involuntarily committed for outpatient treatment has temporarily addressed this ambiguity in state law. But a change is needed in the Code of Virginia as well.
9. Some Virginia colleges and universities are uncertain about what they are permitted to do regarding the possession of firearms on campus.
etc."*
>related
(The president of Virginia Tech) Dr Charles Steger.. said families should not surrender responsibility for students, and that no-one at the college had been made aware of Cho's prior mental health problems.
Governor Thomas Kaine Kaine, who commissioned the report...said (d)uring the time Cho was at Virginia Tech a number of students had "interactions with him that were clearly indications he was troubled and needed assistance", Mr Kaine said.
But, he added, no mechanism existed to deal with Cho's problems on campus.
story | BBC w/link to pdf of Governor's Report*
~Do you think this tragedy will inspire Virginia Tech's board of trustees to turn it into the foremost university for monitoring the mental and physical health concerns of it students?
(Me neither. They'll probably double the size of the SWAT team, buy new radios, add a bomb sniffing robot or two and instruct dorm monitors to call the parents of students who start acting strange. It's way cheaper to kill a crazy caught halfway in the act then to stop a crazy from acting in the first place.
Nobody, absolutely nobody wants to take on the legal problems involved in creating a university controlled medical records database. Along with the cost of creating the necessary infrastrucure that would allow the schools to use that information to best serve it students.There are no socialist American universities.
More guns and quicker response times for the good guys are the only answers.)
[photo not Virginia Tech (Go Bulldogs!)/ "What price erudition?]
Posted by Stubbornson at August 30, 2007 07:34 PM