EDITORIAL: Tech Report Yields Sensible Reforms

By The Virginian-Pilot, Norfolk, Va.

Sep. 6–There are no sadder or more futile words than “might have been” or “if only.”

As in, the devastation wrought by Seung-Hui Cho at Virginia Tech might have been avoided:

— if only Virginia Tech had had a strong “threat assessment” team and the student counseling service had been less inept.

— if only the mental health community had followed up on a judge’s order.

— if only Cho’s parents had been clued in about their son’s troubles.

— if only a firearms dealer had known Cho’s mental history.

In truth, none of them would have guaranteed that Cho could not find a way to vent his rage by claiming innocent lives. In a free society where guns are embedded in the culture, the opportunities for mayhem are endless.

Even so, when tragedies such as Virginia Tech happen, a prudent society must dissect the event to see if there are ways to interrupt or prevent similar catastrophes. As detailed by the Virginia Tech review panel, numerous opportunities exist.

First, Virginia Tech and its sister schools need to have “threat assessment” teams composed of security personnel, faculty, counseling experts and legal advisers. The members need to be clearly empowered to share chapter and verse of troubling incidents involving students and to respond sensitively, but directly. Tech’s team did not have the right personnel or the necessary authority to connect the many dots of campus concern about Cho’s behavior.

Second, student counseling services need to be adequately staffed and take a less benign attitude toward students who fall off the radar after asking for help. Astoundingly, Cho called the Cook Counseling Service at Tech three times in the 15 days before and after he was involuntarily committed for a risk assessment late in 2005. The counseling office took basic information all three times, but Cho never saw professional staff, even after a special mental health judge ordered him into outpatient treatment.

It’s telling that all of Cho’s records at the counseling service — which was seriously understaffed at the time — have disappeared.

Third, parents have a right to know when their offspring get into trouble. It’s inexcusable that Cho could be designated a threat to himself by the legal system and ordered into outpatient treatment without his parents ever being informed of that fact. The laws governing health and student records need to be amended or clarified to make that clear.

Fourth, special justices deciding whether to commit someone for mental health treatment need far more access to health records. Cho’s 2005 hearing was conducted in such an information vacuum as to render it almost meaningless. Even so, the judge was prescient enough to order him into involuntary outpatient treatment.

Amid finger-pointing as to who is responsible, it’s appalling that no one at the community services board followed up to see whether the order was followed. That should never happen again.

Fifth, acting with good intention involving the rights of the mentally ill, Virginia has made it too difficult to involuntarily commit troubled individuals. Serious scrutiny is being given to sensible ideas for dialing back the requirement that individuals be an “imminent danger” to themselves or others.

Sixth, far greater priority needs to be placed on keeping guns out the hands of the mentally ill.

The most meaningful tribute to the 32 students and faculty who died on April 16, 2007, and to the hundreds more who were mentally or physically wounded, would be to adopt these measures.

No one can ever safeguard against every tragedy, but it would be criminal not to try.

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Copyright (c) 2007, The Virginian-Pilot, Norfolk, Va.

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

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