An earlier attempt to remove Cho came to nothing

According to today’s New York Times, the Virginia Tech campus police did attempt in 2005 to have Cho involuntarily committed to a mental institution. The judge in the case found that Cho “presents an imminent danger to self or others” and sent him to a psychiatric hospital for evaluation. But the doctor who examined Cho found that he did not present an imminent danger. And that was that. Nothing more was done. People complained, people worried, but no monitoring was done of him, and the administration was not even aware of the facts of his case. Get your Digitalis out, as Bob Grant used to say, and read this:

[Lisa] Norris, who taught Mr. Cho in a 10-student creative writing workshop last fall, was disturbed enough by his writings that she contacted the associate dean of students, Mary Ann Lewis. Ms. Norris said the faculty was instructed to report problem students to Ms. Lewis.

“You go to her to find out if there are any other complaints about a student,” Ms. Norris said, adding that Ms. Lewis had said she had no record of any problem with Mr. Cho despite his long and troubled history at the university.

“I do not know why she would not have that information,” she said. “I just know that she did not have it.”

So, there was that one unsuccessful attempt to have him committed, in 2005. In the subsequent year and a half, as his behavior became far worse, there was no follow-up, just the impotent complaints going nowhere. The students and teachers did not get together and forcefully petition the authorities to remove this dangerous person. They kvetched, and did nothing.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at April 19, 2007 12:32 PM | Send