BLACKSBURG, Va. -- Officials at Virginia Tech defended yesterday their decision to allow the gunman in Monday's rampage to return to campus after he was released from a psychiatric facility, even though they were aware of his troubled mental history and potential for violence.
Cho Seung-Hui, 23, the student who killed himself and 32 others, received outpatient psychiatric care ordered for him after he was involuntarily hospitalized and reportedly suicidal in late 2005.
Christopher Flynn, director of the campus counseling service, said the university had played no role in monitoring Cho's psychiatric treatment.
"The university is not part of the mental health system nor the judiciary system, and we would not be the providers of mandatory counseling in this instance," Flynn said at a news conference. "This is not a law enforcement issue. He had broken no law that we know of. The mental health professionals were there to assess his safety, not particularly the safety of others."
Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine said yesterday that a state commission would review the circumstances leading up to the shootings - including the extent of Cho's interaction with the mental health system - and the way the university handled events that day.
"While we're not going out there to second-guess people," said the commission's chairman, Gerald Massengill, a former superintendent of the state police. "We are going out there to find some lessons to learn."
At yesterday's news conference, State Police Superintendent Steve Flaherty said he was "disappointed" with NBC's decision to air excerpts of digital recordings and still images that Cho mailed Monday morning to the network's New York offices. The network, which received the materials Wednesday, turned them over to authorities but ran excerpts that night on the NBC Nightly News.
As a result of the broadcast, Flaherty said, victims' families and the public had "endured a view of life few of us should have to endure." The network faced a barrage of criticism for showing the footage.
Flaherty said that the material that Cho sent to NBC contained no "vital evidence" and was of "marginal value" to investigators.
Also yesterday, Virginia Tech Provost Mark G. McNamee announced that the students who died in Monday's rampage would receive posthumous degrees at graduation ceremonies on May 11.
Classes are scheduled to resume Monday, but McNamee said that students would be able to decide how they chose to complete the semester.
