Cho’s Family Struggled in Korea:
This is an AP article about Cho Seung-Hui’s family life.
His parents immigrated to America when he was 8 for, lacking a better term, the American Dream.
They moved to the U.S. in order to have a better life. They worked in a dry cleaner’s while raising him in suburban D.C.
I hope to God they didn’t pay for his stay at Virginia Tech because he did a shitty job of paying them back.
Shooter was the ‘question mark kid’:
More former classmates of Cho Seung-Hui are describing him as a loner, but it sounds like it was by his own choice…
Classmates say that on the first day of a British literature class last year, students took turns introducing themsleves. When it was Cho Seung-Hui’s turn to speak, he said nothing.
The professor then looked at the sign-in sheet, and noticed that Cho had written a question mark instead of his name. The professor asked, “Is your name ‘Question mark?”‘ A classmate, Julie Poole, says Cho offered little response.
She says he then spent much of the class sitting in the back of the room, wearing a hat and seldom participating. Even though it was a small English department, she says, Cho remained anonymous, not reaching out to anyone, and not talking.
Unfortunately, for the victims at Virginia Tech, that question mark is now an exclamation point.
Here are some links from blogs that I read regularly about the tragedy at Virginia Tech…
Cho Seung-Hui is the New Face of Evil:
VIRGINIA TECH: The coming storm for immigrants:
Lamentations on Virginia Tech:
Heroism in the Midst of Tragedy:
Virginia Tech Rampage victims:
Ismail Ax and the North Korean President:
If I left your blog out, please don’t be offended. Feel free to post links in the comments.
What do those three names have in common besides the fact that they’re overpaid talking heads? Well, two of them have placed the blame for the Virginia Tech massacre squarely on video games while one of them dismissed the idea, and it may not be the ones that you think.
Ok, Jack Thompson is the one that you think. That should have come as no surprise.
What did come as a surprise was TV quack, Dr. Phil. I was never a big fan of his to begin with, but I thought he had more smarts than this…
Well, Larry, every situation is different. The question really is can we spot them. And the problem is we are programming these people as a society. You cannot tell me – common sense tells you that if these kids are playing video games, where they’re on a mass killing spree in a video game, it’s glamorized on the big screen, it’s become part of the fiber of our society. You take that and mix it with a psychopath, a sociopath or someone suffering from mental illness and add in a dose of rage, the suggestibility is too high.
What came as even more of a surprise was radio blowhard Rush Limbaugh coming to the defense of gamers.
Not every video gamer goes out and murders 33 people on the college campus though. There’s more to this than that, it may desensitize people, but it doesn’t turn everybody into mass murderers?
People have a tough time accepting a relatively simple explanation for something of this scale. But how many people are playing video games out there? How many millions of people play video games, and how many millions of people have guns?
As they say, politics makes strange bedfellows.
Osantowski to seek Supreme Court appeal:
The last time we heard from convicted school shooting plotter Andrew Osantowski, his conviction was upheld, and he found out that he might receive more prison time according to the Michigan Court of Appeals. Now his attorney is appealing to the Michigan Supreme Court.
The appellate attorney for Andrew Osantowski said that she will ask the state Supreme Court to hear arguments on a half-dozen issues, including the constitutionality of the terrorism statute and his sentencing guideline range.
Marla McCowan, Osantowski’s appellate attorney, said she also asked the Court of Appeals to reconsider its March 2006 decision to allow Osantowski’s statement to be used in the case. McCowan said she is arguing that Osantowski’s Miranda rights were not properly provided. She said a decision on that issue could be made by May.
Osantowski is scheduled for resentencing June 13th, but this appeal could delay that.
Grandmother: Accused shooter considerate child:
Here is some courtroom theatrics for you.
In a hearing to see if Weston High School shooter, Eric Hainstock, will be tried as an adult, his grandmother testified on his behalf.
Irene Hainstock was pushed up to the stand in a wheelchair and, with a gray bun and a white crocheted blanket on her lap, gave teary testimony about her relationship with her grandson and his troubled upbringing. Hainstock sat unmoved throughout her testimony.
“He’s always been a loving child” he showed affection very easily and he was very talkative,” she said. “He liked to talk, and grandma listened.”
His very early childhood, spent in Reedsburg with parents Shawn and Lisa Hainstock, was relatively normal, Irene Hainstock said. It was when he was three or four and his father remarried to Pricella Hainstock that things became “not the best,” she said.
The Hainstock home on Bird Drive in La Valle was unkempt with multiple dogs that Pricella was raising in the home, she said.
Once Shawn Hainstock said to his wife, “I think you love the dogs more than you love Eric,” Irene Hainstock testified. “She said, ‘Maybe I do.” Hearing that felt “terrible,” she said. “He’s my grandson.”
In his older childhood years he began to be “terribly nervous and jumpy and flustered,” Irene Hainstock said, and was prescribed Ritalin. In the fall of 2001, when Eric was 10, he went to live with his grandmother for several months.
Even after he returned home, he would bike the three miles to his grandmother’s home and seemed to seek refuge in their relationship, she said.
“Like any teenager, I think he resented Pricella’s authority over him,” she said. “He always came to grandma.”
When he would complain about being bullied at school, the advice she would give him, Irene Hainstock said, was “trying to get along, forgive.”
What does Hainstock’s home life have to do with killing John Klang? After all, he didn’t murder his stepmother.
The prosecution seems to be unfazed.
After Hainstock had testified that her grandson was locked in a locker at school, held by his ankles with his head in a toilet by another student and told by a teacher that he wouldn’t “be (at school) long if I have anything to say about it,” District Attorney Patricia Barrett asked what she had done to intervene.
Irene Hainstock said she thought that was Eric’s parents’ job.
“So it didn’t worry you enough to go past his parents to protect your grandson and tell the school?” Barrett asked. “It seemed to have stuck in your memory, but it didn’t seem to bother you enough to report it.”
“Like I said,” Hainstock said, “I thought his parents would take care of it.”
Barrett said a school report showed Eric had instigated the incident with the toilet, and earlier had threatened other students, brought to school both powdered calcium he said was cocaine and a mixture of Kool-Aid and cough syrup he said was blood.
In the spring of eighth grade, Barrett said, Eric threw a chair in choir class and grabbed his teacher by her arm until it was numb while screaming profanities. Irene Hainstock said she wasn’t aware of any of those incidents.
But he’s the victim? I don’t think so.
AOL News has a great piece about Cho Seung-Hui as told by one of his former classmates and has links to the other “play” written by him.
First the ex-classmate and current AOL employee Ian MacFarlane.
When I first heard about the multiple shootings at Virginia Tech yesterday, my first thought was about my friends, and my second thought was “I bet it was Seung Cho.”
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. Before Cho got to class that day, we students were talking to each other with serious worry about whether he could be a school shooter. I was even thinking of scenarios of what I would do in case he did come in with a gun, I was that freaked out about him. When the students gave reviews of his play in class, we were very careful with our words in case he decided to snap. Even the professor didn’t pressure him to give closing comments.
After hearing about the mass shootings, I sent one of my friends a Facebook message asking him if he knew anything about Seung Cho and if he could have been involved. He replied: “dude that’s EXACTLY what I was thinking! No, I haven’t heard anything, but seriously, that was the first thing I thought when I heard he was Asian.”
Now on to the second play by Cho Seung-Hui called “Mr. Brownstone” about two underage kids hanging out in a casino complaining about one of their teachers. It’s not as innocent as it sounds, and Cho seems to have some kind of fascination with shit.
I noticed that both of his plays involve teenagers as protagonists. I wonder if he just couldn’t leave his high school life behind.
Virginia Killer’s Violent Writings:
As usual, The Smoking Gun is there. This time they have the disturbing creative writing of Virginia Tech gunman Cho Seung-Hui. A poorly written and bizarre piece entitled “Richard McBeef” about a 13-year-old kid who accuses his stepfather of murdering his biological father and making pedophilia-like advances on the boy.
If you think this is some poor boy pouring his heart out, guess again.
As I’m fond of saying, this kid had more issues than Reader’s Digest.
Sources: College gunman left note:
According to the article, Virginia Tech gunman Cho Seung-Hui left behind a disturbing note in his dorm room.
The note included a rambling list of grievances, according to sources. They said Cho also died with the words “Ismail Ax” in red ink on the inside of one of his arms.
Cho had shown recent signs of violent, aberrant behavior, according to an investigative source, including setting a fire in a dorm room and allegedly stalking some women.
A note believed to have been written by Cho was found in his dorm room that railed against “rich kids,” “debauchery” and “deceitful charlatans” on campus.
Welcome to college Junior. Why in the blue hell did this mean that 32 innocent victims had to lose their lives?
Some faculty members were concerned about Seung-Hui’s state of mental health…
Professor Carolyn Rude, chairwoman of the university’s English department, said she did not personally know the gunman. But she said she spoke with Lucinda Roy, the department’s director of creative writing, who had Cho in one of her classes and described him as “troubled.”
“There was some concern about him,” Rude said. “Sometimes, in creative writing, people reveal things and you never know if it’s creative or if they’re describing things, if they’re imagining things or just how real it might be. But we’re all alert to not ignore things like this.”
She said Cho was referred to the counseling service, but she said she did not know when, or what the outcome was.
Obviously, it wasn’t successful.
And once again, we have another shooter who decided to take the coward’s way out by killing himself before authorities could take him into custody.
I can describe Seung-Hui in the same three words I used to describe all other school shooters. Cowardly fucking scumbag.