Police, students and victims’ relatives turned against the United States network NBC on Thursday for broadcasting the chilling rant of the Virginia Tech killer, as it became clear he had gone to great lengths to amplify his notoriety with a package of video clips, photographs and invective.
Parents of some of those shot dead by Cho Seung-hui expressed horror at the video footage of the killer and cancelled planned interviews with the network, while the head of Virginia state police, Steve Flaherty, opened a press conference on campus with a rebuke to NBC. ”We’re rather disappointed in the editorial decision to broadcast these disturbing images,” he said. ”I’m sorry that you were all exposed to these images.”
Flaherty said the video had not told the police anything they did not know.
Steve Capus, the NBC president, who shared some material with other broadcasters, defended the broadcast: ”This is, I think, as close as we will ever come to being inside of the mind of a killer, and I thought that it needed to be released.
”Pretty much every single news organisation all around the world has made the same decision, that it was appropriate to release this information.”
But the decision quickly alienated parents of victims. Meredith Viera, co-host of NBC’s Today programme, said: ”We had planned to speak to some family members of victims this morning, but they cancelled their appearances because they were very upset with NBC for airing the images.” In the face of the criticism, NBC decided on Thursday to restrict the number of times the material was shown.
Many students watched on screens around the campus, but expressed revulsion. Others had mixed feelings. Kevin Tosh was in the dormitory where the first shooting took place, and said that, while the images may have been too harsh for those directly involved, they helped in one way: ”It puts a face to him, and the mindset he was in. We can’t believe how angry and out of his mind he was.”
Last night, with a backlash developing, Fox News said it would stop running the images, and other networks said they would severely limit their use. ”It has value as breaking news,” said an ABC News spokesperson, Jeffrey Schneider, ”but then becomes practically pornographic, as it is just repeated ad nauseam.”
Cho (23) killed two students in the first shooting, and 30 students and staff two hours later. He stopped in between to post to NBC in New York a package containing video footage, digital photos, and a long statement. NBC received the package on Wednesday and passed it to the police. Asked if the police had asked NBC not to show it, Flaherty said bluntly: ”It was NBC’s decision to put it out.”
Cho sent the package from a post office near the campus minutes before he went to Norris Hall for the second shootings. The post worker who served Cho could not recall much about him, but did remember the address was muddled and correcting part of it. NBC said another post worker brought the package to NBC’s attention on noticing the Blacksburg return address and a name similar to words reportedly scrawled in red ink on Cho’s arm after the bloodbath, ”Ismail Ax”.
Cho filmed himself: the footage shows him reaching out to switch the camera on and off. Police are checking whether he may have hired a hotel room to film some sequences. Karan Grewal, one of his roommates, said the background in one looked like their flat. He was surprised at the different personality the normally silent and reclusive Cho presented: ”It was a totally different person. He was staring straight at the camera, and he never stared into our eyes or even looked at us.”
The police had trouble confirming the identities of all of the victims, and finally released a full list on Thursday. The university said murdered students would receive posthumous degrees. Classes resume on Monday. Although a university official warned against ”the seductive desire to blame”, police and university staff faced renewed questioning as to how someone who had spent time in a mental hospital had been allowed back on campus and to buy guns. The owner of one shop where Cho bought a gun said on Thursday he had received hate mail and threats to his life.
How NBC got the tape
Even before it was opened, the oversized letter from Cho Seung-hui to NBC News attracted attention. The postal worker who brought it to NBC’s Manhattan headquarters on Wednesday pointed out the return address of Blacksburg, Virginia.
Inside was what NBC anchor Brian Williams described as a multimedia manifesto, with video, pictures and writing from the murderer of 32 people just before he went on his killing spree at Virginia Tech. Cho mailed it at 9.01am on Monday, between murders.
The package was incorrectly addressed, delaying its arrival. NBC security opened the envelope. They handled it with gloved hands, and made copies of what they found. At noon, Steve Capus, president of NBC News, was told what had been delivered. ”At first I wondered if it was real, but when you look at it and see all the pictures you realise that it is,” he said.
The package contained a DVD, 23 pages of profane messages and 29 pictures of the killer. Eleven showed him aiming a gun at the camera. One showed 30 hollow-point bullets, with the message: ”All the shit you gave me right back at you with hollow points.” The FBI got the originals from NBC, which was asked not to say anything publicly until investigators had examined the evidence.
The first public word was not released until a news conference in Blacksburg at about 4.30pm.
Testimony of a killer
The killer’s confession comprised an 1,800-word harangue, 43 photos and 28 video clips. Only parts have been publicly released. In his statement, he said:
You had a hundred billion chances and ways to have avoided today. But you decided to spill my blood. You forced me into a corner and gave me only one option. The decision was yours. Now you have blood on your hands that will never wash off. I didn’t have to do this. I could have left. I could have fled. But now I will no longer run. It’s not for me. It’s for my children, for my brothers and sisters … I did it for them…
You just loved to crucify me. You loved inducing cancer in my head, terror in my heart and ripping my soul all this time … You have vandalized my heart, raped my soul and torched my conscience. You thought it was one pathetic boy’s life you were extinguishing. Thanks to you, I die like Jesus Christ, to inspire generations of the weak and the defenceless people.
Do you know what it feels to be spit on your face and to have trash shoved down your throat? Do you know what it feels like to dig your own grave? Do you know what it feels like to have throat slashed from ear to ear? Do you know what it feels like to be torched alive? Do you know what it feels like to be humiliated and be impaled upon on a cross? And left to bleed to death for your amusement? You have never felt a single ounce of pain your whole life. Did you want to inject as much misery in our lives as you can just because you can? You had everything you wanted. Your Mercedes wasn’t enough, you brats. Your golden necklaces weren’t enough, you snobs. Your trust fund wasn’t enough. Your vodka and cognac weren’t enough. All your debaucheries weren’t enough. Those weren’t enough to fulfill your hedonistic needs. You had everything …
When the time came, I did it. I had to …
This is it. This is where it all ends. End of the road. What a life it was. Some life. – Guardian Unlimited Â