Seung-Hui Cho

Seung-Hui Cho

Template:Koreanname Template:Korean name Cho Seung-hui (Korean: 조승희 (Hangul); January 18, 1984 – April 16, 2007) was the perpetrator of the Virginia Tech massacre of April 16, 2007, in Blacksburg, Virginia, United States, according to police reports. He committed suicide after law enforcement officers breached the doors of the building in which he had already killed and wounded many staff and students.

Biography

Cho was born in South Korea. His family lived in Seoul, staying in a rented basement apartment. Landlord Lim Bong-ae states that "I didn't know what (Cho's father) did for a living. But they lived a poor life," Lim told the newspaper. "While emigrating, (Cho's father) said they were going to America because it is difficult to live here and that it's better to live in a place where he is unknown."

Cho emigrated to the United States in September 1992, when he was 8 years old, with his two parents and older sister. Immigrants who come to the United States as young children are often referred to by Koreans as 1.5 generation immigrants. He was a permanent legal resident of the United States and a South Korean citizen. Cho had a permanent address in Centreville, Virginia, an unincorporated community in western part of largely affluent Fairfax County, about 25 miles (40 km) west of Washington, D.C. and a few miles directly south of Washington Dulles International Airport. The D.C. area's Korean community numbers about 52,000 as one of the region's most educated and established immigrant groups. Cho graduated in 2003 from Westfield High School in the Chantilly community of Fairfax County.

Cho was an undergraduate at Virginia Tech, majoring in English, although he had told others he was a business major.

Virginia Tech massacre

Main article: Virginia Tech massacre

According to television news reports on April 17, Cho left a note criticizing "rich kids," "debauchery," and "deceitful charlatans". He killed two students, Emily J. Hilscher and Ryan C. "Stack" Clark, on the fourth floor of West Ambler Johnston, a high-rise coeducational dorm, around 07:15 EDT (UTC-4); police have not positively stated that Cho was the perpetrator of that shooting in addition to the later one, although forensic evidence confirms that that one gun was used in both shooting incidents. Within the next two and a half hours, Cho returned to his room to re-arm himself, mailed pictures and documents to NBC , and then crossed the campus to continue his rampage in a classroom building, Norris Hall, at 09:45 EDT (UTC-4). Police identified Cho by matching fingerprints on the guns used in the shootings with immigration materials.

The words "Ismail Ax" were found written on his arm in red ink. It was later understood that "Ismail AX" was Cho's Xbox Live Gamertag under which he played games such as Counter-Strike and Battlefield 2. Police found a receipt for the Glock 19 pistol dated March 13, 2007. Permanent residents in Virginia may legally purchase firearms as long as they provide proof of residency, pass an immediate automated background check, and answer a questionnaire, although Virginia Tech students were forbidden from bringing firearms on campus on threat of expulsion. Cho bought the second weapon, a Walther P22 pistol, on April 13, 2007.

As police closed in on him in Norris Hall, Cho committed suicide, with a gunshot to his head.

Motive

No official motive for the shooting spree has been announced by law enforcement agencies. Authorities found two three-page notes which were filled with expletives attacking the rich and privileged, even naming people he thought were impeding him. This might be consistent with growing up among affluent classmates in Fairfax county, where the median household income in 2003 was $82,481.

Early reports indicate that Cho Seung-hui was obsessed with Emily Hilscher and became enraged after being rejected. Hilscher's resident assistant Ryan "Stack" Clark tried to intervene but both were shot by Cho.

Behavior and mental health

Photograph taken by Cho

In 2005 Cho Seung-Hui was temporarily detained and declared mentally ill and a danger to himself or others by a Montgomery County, Virginia district court. Following psychiatric evaluation, he was ordered undergo outpatient care and released. Some reports state that Cho is believed to have been taking psychiatric medications for depression,, but there is no record of this in federal prescription databases.

A university spokesman described Cho as a "loner," and said university officials were having a difficult time finding information about him. A Korean club on campus reported that he rarely joined or talked with them. Cho had earlier been accused of setting a fire in a dormitory and stalking women on campus.

According to a classmate in Cho's 300-level Playwriting class, "Cho was really, really quiet. I can't even remember one word he said the entire semester." Although the class was a workshop class, in which students were encouraged to submit their plays for class discussion, when Cho was asked to comment, "he would just shrug and say nothing." According to the professor who taught the class, Cho never participated in class discussions. "He was just there, I can't even describe it. He would just sit and watch us, but wouldn't say anything. It was his lack of behavior that really set him apart. He basically just kept to himself, very isolated. I remember only once he smiled, but it wasn't very big."

Lucinda Roy, one of Cho's English professors, described Cho as "an intelligent man" but seemed to be an awkward and very lonely man who never took off his sunglasses, even indoors. By fall 2005, Roy removed Cho from her class after he became angry in the classroom. She said she tried several different ways to help him, including a decision to refer him for counseling which was unsuccessful. Roy would not comment at length on Cho’s writings, saying only that in general they “seemed very angry.” According to Roy, Cho was "extraordinarily lonely—the loneliest person I have ever met in my life." She said that he whispered, took 20 seconds to answer questions, and took cell phone pictures of her in class. After becoming concerned with his behavior and the themes in his writings, the professor started meeting with Cho to work with him one-on-one. She said she was concerned for her safety when she met with him. After notifying the legal authorities about his behavior, the professor urged Cho to seek counseling, but he refused.

Professor Nikki Giovanni, who taught Cho in a poetry class, but had him removed from her class because his behavior was so menacing, called the idea that Cho was troubled "crap", and described him as "mean." 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."

Neighbor Abdul Shash described Cho as "very quiet, always by himself," and said he spent a lot of time playing basketball and would not respond if someone greeted him. Fellow student Julie Poole said that on the first day of a literature class last year the students introduced themselves one by one, but when it was Cho's turn, he did not speak. The professor, she said, looked at the sign-in sheet and where everyone else had written their names, Cho had written a question mark. "We just really knew him as the question mark kid," Poole added.

According to an interview of both his roommates (who have thus far have only gone by their first names), John and Andy, on CNN, Cho was "very quiet" and because of his extreme shyness, came off as somewhat rude. In the interview, Andy describes Cho standing in the unlocked doorway of his room late at night taking photographs, and placing cellphone calls as "Cho's brother, Question Mark", a name he would also use when introducing himself to girls with whom he was allegedly obsessed. John declined to describe Cho as "mean", conflicting with some other first-hand accounts, preferring to describe him as "quiet". The roommates also said he repeatedly stalked their female friends. Furthermore, as reported in the interview by Gary Tuchman, Cho's roommates revealed that, after having a few beers and finally talking at length, he spoke of an imaginary supermodel girlfriend named "Jelly" who referred to him as "Spanky." Cho reportedly took photos of female classmates from under his desk.

Criminological classification

The incident is the deadliest shooting on a college campus, exceeding the sixteen deaths of the University of Texas shooting of 1966; and is the second deadliest school-related killing in U.S. history, behind the 1927 Bath School disaster which claimed forty-five lives, including thirty-eight school children, through the use of explosives.

With a death toll of thirty-two victims plus the killer, this is the deadliest single-perpetrator civilian shooting in United States history, surpassing the Luby's massacre of 1991, in which twenty-four people were killed.These totals includes the murderer or murderers. In the University of Texas shooting, different sources claim fifteen, sixteen, or seventeen victim deaths. In the Bath disaster, 44 were killed by the bombs, with the killer's wife beaten to death earlier. Internationally, it is surpassed by the 1982 massacre of fifty-seven South Koreans by off-duty police officer Woo Bum-Kon and the 1996 Port Arthur massacre in the Australian state of Tasmania where thirty-five people were killed by gunman Martin Bryant.

Like Charles Whitman in the University of Texas shooting of 1966, Cho Seung-hui was a typical spree killer. Charles Whitman, for example, killed his mother and wife the night before his deadly campus shooting of 1966. Cho Seung-hui killed two people in a first shooting, went back to his dorm to reload and write a note, and then again went out to his second and deadliest shooting in Norris Hall.

Attributed writings

Plays

In 2006, Cho wrote a short one-act play entitled "Richard McBeef". It is about a 13-year-old boy, John, who accuses his stepfather, Richard McBeef, of molesting him and murdering his father. John repeatedly says he will kill Richard. The play ends with Richard dealing John "a deadly blow".

In a second play attributed to Cho, titled "Mr. Brownstone", three 17-year-olds named John, Jane, and Joe are gambling at a casino while discussing their deep hatred of their 45-year-old mathematics teacher, Mr. Brownstone, who they claim raped them.

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 contain several typos. Falco believed that Cho was drawn to writing, because of his considerable difficulty communicating verbally. 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." Former classmate, Ian MacFarlane stated, "When 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."

"Post Mordem" Package

At around 4:30pm EST on April 18, 2007, NBC News got word that a mysterious package was sent to NBC containing disturbing photographs and a manifesto written down on paper, read aloud, and recorded on a DVD like disk. That package was immediately turned over to local authorities in New York and will be sent to law enforcement in Virginia. NBC News has been cleared to air the video evidence at approximately 6:30pm EST on their television network.

See also

• Virginia Tech massacre
• School shooting
• Massacre
• Antisocial personality disorder, ASPD

External links

• Cho Seung-Hui- Terror On Tape
• BBC profile of Cho Seung-Hui
• Text of "Richard McBeef" from TheSmokingGun.com
• Text of Richard McBeef and Mr. Brownstone on aol.com
• Search warrant for Cho's on-campus residence
• Casualties of Deadly shooting at Virginia Tech University