Geoff W. from Virginia Tech...

My old friend Geoff happened to be at Virginia Tech the day of the shootings, here's his report-

April 24, 2007

Freedom's Underbelly

The college tour with number two son started out with very little fanfare by driving through the Nor'Easter that hit the area before touching down somewhere on Route 81 in Virginia 12 hours later. We got up, had a quick breakfast and made the college campus by 8:30 am for a 9:00 am talk, a 10:00 tour, and then another talk with the engineering department at 11:00. Around noon, we figured, we'd hop in the car and drive another 6 hours south to take a look at another school the next day before turning around and hitting two more the following day.

So there we sat in the back of the room. My son with pen and paper to take notes after a little parental head sharpening about it being his decision and his responsibility and me with pen and crossword puzzle to occupy my time.

We heard what sounded like an air chisel we assumed was coming from the building to our right somewhere around 9:30 or so. We then heard a bunch of sirens and policemen with guns and flak jackets running to the building to our left. A couple of people jumped out of some windows and were either running or crawling away from the building we would later learn was called Norris Hall.

Around this time the head of Admissions at Virginia Tech interrupted our discussion and had us move into the center of the building away from the windows where they attempted to maintain a sense of normalcy by continuing the admissions pitch to our group of about 30 or so. We also learned the 11:00 discussion with the engineering department would not take place given it was to have been held in Norris Hall.

Eventually CNN and Fox News picked up on the story. They breathlessly reported inaccurate information for at least 90 minutes. They kept referring to AJ, the building where the two had been shot at 7:15 while we were looking out at Norris Hall some 150 feet away where all the action was taking place.

The media does an incredible disservice to us when they rush to report unverified information. I distinctly remember them interviewing two different undergrads on the phone, broadcasting that live. One hadn't heard a thing as he had been listening to his iPod. The other was some ditzy coed who sounded as though she was still hungover who also had no clue as to what was taking place because she had slept late and was rushing to get to her 11:00 class.

Once the media realized it had been wrong, it immediately began questioning the administration. Given the media couldn't get its facts right, the administration had to have been inept, right? The administration was rather busy at the moment trying to treat the wounded. In the admissions office you could see the agony on the Virginia Tech faces as they explained to us that part of the difficulty happened to be the high winds which were keeping medical helicopters on the ground.

They released us from the building around noon and told us to get to our cars and leave the campus. At this point the media was reporting 7 to 8 casualties. We crossed a line of approximately a dozen ambulances lined up behind the buildings which seemed curious to us at the time of our departure. Equally as curious was finding a parking ticket on my car date stamped at 9:00 am. Once on the highway heading away from Virginia Tech the numbers began to climb first to 22 dead and then to the final tally of 33 counting the shooter.

Since that day it seems the attention has been misplaced. It has all revolved around second guessing an administration that was hip deep in a crisis. It is not at all unreasonable to come across two dead in a co-ed's room and assume the shooter has fled the seen rather than gone off on a suicide mission to become famous. Virginia Tech is a sprawling campus with multiple buildings. The idea of locking down a small city of 25,000 coming and going as they please is laughable on its face. This is not a single building high school with 20 or so entrances that can be guarded in a manner of minutes.

Bad things happen to good people. It is perfectly understandable that parents of the deceased are going to want to rage against the administration in an effort to explain the unexplainable. That does not mean, however, that we as a nation should succumb to this. The administration did not do anything wrong. It did not stray from standard procedures investigating the first crime which would expect a shooter to flee the scene.

But now we have the national posturing while the bodies are still warm. Gun control nuts on both sides of the issue sought to seize the day. Limelight starved politicians call for national studies and new laws about college campus safety. People question the privacy rights of mentally ill patients, and on and on and on.

A free society cannot protect against the damage that can be done by a person willing - indeed, eager - to give up their life in order to take the lives of others. Our attention at this point should not be at trying to score political points. It should be directed at giving the parents, faculty and students associated with Virginia Tech some privacy to deal with what has to be a devastatingly horrific situation for them. It couldn't have been foreseen, and it could not have been pre-empted. There's no one to blame other than the sick waste of life who pulled the trigger.

My son remains interested in Virginia Tech. We were unable to visit the campus during our time in the south as it was closed off and overrun by talking heads from the media seeking to pick them apart while using their campus as a visual. The intent is to apply to the college of engineering. If accepted, then we will make a second trip down to evaluate a campus that should be out of the media limelight and well on the way to returning to normalcy. By then the media will be feasting on the entrails of a different community eviscerated by the crazed actions of others.

It leaves me wondering how low the media must go before we will recoil and begin considering narrowing rather than broadening first amendment protection for these jackals.


Regards,
Geoff Woollacott
President
Renaissance Group Int'l, Inc.