North American Schools - places of higher learning or just somewhere to DIE prematurely...?
This undated handout photo provided by Nova Scotia Agricultural College shows Jocelyn Couture-Nowak (R.I.P.), left, and her husband Jerzy Nowak. (AP File/CP/ HO)
The question can be asked - considering that, for instance, one of my old "alma mater" - the University of Montreal - has over 30 pavillions and only 5, count'em, FIVE security guards, ONLY, to oversee them all...!
Another question that came to me, as I was reflecting about today's youth in the days leading up to this tragedy (not that I have medium foresight and knew it was about to happen - no! My claim to be an L.P. - a luminous psychic - does not entail that much uncanny ability to tell the future...) - how many Blackberries have lost their owners in Blacksburg, VA.?
Easy -and morbid- pun to make, I know; but EVERYONE of a certain age and standing in this facetious society of ours simply MUST have one of those nowadays - and an iPod... And a cell phone... And laptop... And 1001 gadgets, really...
Alas, the most disturbed among us have NONE of those things - but they can get their hands on a Glock 9 mm. model - or any other handgun they want, really! And, so provided with empowerment, they can go about their grisly business of revendicating for themselves much media attention, in the most sickening of all ways to make some noise and garner short-lived fame - and infamy.
I heard another so-called "expert" (with a degree in either psychology, sociology or "psychopathy"...?!?) lament and downright denounce the fact that the media will now spend days and weeks giving this "worthless being" all that he sought in going over the edge and losing it completely - even if methodically... He will get all the fame he sought now - his "worthless life" will be remembered, if only because of what he did, for a long time to come (until the world ends, probably...)
His is the sought-after prize: evidence, and spectacular evidence at that, that he LIVED - that he was THERE; and sure as hell will be a bottomless pit of brimstone, he left his mark all over the place there, indeed...
But was this "worthless killer" really worthless? Does his life have no worth at all - because of what he wound up doing? Would that expert dare say that 75% of the rest of this world's population is worthier than him - simply because they did not act out their darkest fantasies? He was a human being - so were his 32 victims. ALL were flawed creatures - and so are the rest of the world's population. No one can deem anyone else of being outright "worthless" - because no one's contributions are FOREVER. NOTHING IS FOREVER.
The killer was, of course, very wrong to think that his heinous actions would garner him forever fame - all it will get him of an eternal and forevermore value is a ticket to the Pit! But the expert who destroyed him so completely and mercilessly is totally wrong too - for, for lesser sins than his, she and anyone else could wind up in the same damned place too...
Besides, it is so silly to behold any so-called expert denounce an abominable being like this - when we know full well that, were that man still alive, he'd get a prolonged trial that would make damn sure that ALL of his rights were respected... Are those worthless rights than, respected in a worthless manner as a part of a worthless process inherent to a worthless so-called judicial system...?!?
I heard of a story years ago - some black woman went into a WalMart - bought her ANTIDEPRESSANT PRESCRIPTION DRUGS... bought herself some junk food too... and bought herself a GUN, of course... And then, the combined effects of all of her purchases left, if memory serves me right, two dead and several injured by the wayside...
In the wake of this tragic incident at Virginia Tech, gun reform is a MUST in the U.S. - there is no way that they can leave things be, when any crazy off the street can easily access ownership of a lethal weapon at a retailer such as WalMart - the alleged family-friendly one-stop shopping experience where everything costs less... The unwanted side-effect is that LIFE is devalued too; as the prices are chopped, so are lives...
The media focus should by all means be on the victims whose lives were shortened by this MAJOR oversight on gun control... Some have whipped up reports on the webpage phenomenon: where the victims's personal pages on popular sites such as MySpace.com became, overnight, a repository for many eulogies about the departed ones...
I had no idea that the favorite niece of a dear friend of mine had been among the thirty-two victims; I learned of it when the dear friend in question told me of the sad truth, while I was still pondering what to write here on the tragic event.
Any lives that are cut short or hampered in any way in their natural progress are to be mourned - remembered - eulogized.
And never forgotten.
Labels: Virginia Tech
posted by Luminous (\ô/) Luciano™ @ 5:45 PM
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33 killed in Virginia Tech shootings, including gunman who killed himself
By Sue Lindsey
BLACKSBURG, Va. (CP) - A gunman opened fire in a Virginia Tech dorm and then, two hours later, shot up a classroom across campus Monday, killing 32 people in the deadliest shooting rampage in U.S. history. The gunman committed suicide, bringing the death toll to 33.
Students complained that there were no public-address announcements or other warnings on campus after the first burst of gunfire. They said the first word they received from the university was an e-mail more than two hours into the rampage - around the time the gunman struck again.
Virginia Tech President Charles Steger said authorities believed that the shooting at the dorm was a domestic dispute and mistakenly thought the gunman had fled the campus.
"We had no reason to suspect any other incident was going to occur," he said.
He defended the university's handling of the tragedy, saying: "We can only make decisions based on the information you had on the time. You don't have hours to reflect on it."
Investigators offered no motive for the attack. The gunman's name was not immediately released, and it was not known whether he was a student.
The shootings spread panic and confusion on campus.
Witnesses reporting students jumping out the windows of a classroom building to escape the gunfire. SWAT team members with helmets, flak jackets and assault rifles swarmed over the campus. Students and faculty members carried out some of the wounded themselves, without waiting for ambulances to arrive.
The massacre took place at opposite sides of the 1,050-hectare campus, beginning at about 7:15 a.m. at West Ambler Johnston, a coed dormitory that houses 895 people, and continuing at least two hours later at Norris Hall, an engineering building about a kilometre, authorities said.
Two people were killed in a dormitory room, and 31 others were killed in the engineering building, including the gunman, police said.
"Today the university was struck with a tragedy that we consider of monumental proportions," Steger said. "The university is shocked and indeed horrified."
Steger said the university decided to rely on e-mail and other electronic means of notifying members of the university, but with 11,000 people driving onto campus first thing in the morning, it was difficult to get the word out.
He said that before the e-mail went out, the university began telephoning resident advisers in the dorms to notify them, and sent people to knock on doors to spread the word.
Virginia Tech Police Chief Wendell Flinchum would not say how many weapons the gunman carried. But a law-enforcement official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the investigation was incomplete, said that the gunman had two pistols and multiple clips of ammunition.
Police said they were still investigating the shooting at the dorm when they got word of gunfire at the classroom building.
Some students bitterly questioned why the gunman was able to strike a second time.
"What happened today this was ridiculous," student Jason Piatt told CNN. "While they send out that e-mail, 20 more people got killed."
Students and Laura Wedin, a student programs manager at Virginia Tech, said the first notification they got of the shootings came in an e-mail at 9:26 a.m., more than two hours after the first shooting.
The e-mail had few details. It said: "A shooting incident occurred at West Amber Johnston earlier this morning. Police are on the scene and are investigating." The message warned students to be cautious and contact police about anything suspicious.
Student Maurice Hiller said he went to a 9 a.m. class two buildings away from the engineering building, and no warnings were coming over the outdoor public address system on campus at the time.
Everett Good, junior, said of the lack of warning: "I'm trying to figure that out. Someone's head is definitely going to roll over that."
"We were kept in the dark a lot about exactly what was going on," said Andrew Capers Thompson, a 22-year-old graduate student from Walhalla, S.C.
At least 26 people were being treated at three area hospitals for gunshot wounds and other injuries, authorities said. Their exact conditions were not disclosed, but at least one was sent to a trauma centre and six were in surgery, authorities said.
The Cranwell International Center at Virginia Tech said there were 16 Canadians there as of August 2006. It's uncertain how many are still there, as some may have left since last summer.
CBC Nova Scotia said three exchange students at Virginia Tech, all from the Maritimes, were reportedly safe. They have been contacted by the Nova Scotia Agricultural College in Truro, N.S. They started their exchange at Virginia Tech in January and were expected to return home next month.
A Canadian student at Virginia Tech said when contacted earlier Monday that he hadn't moved from his dorm room since the shooting rampage began.
Yoann Re, 18, said he saw police officers yelling at students who were walking around one of the dorms where the shootings took place, telling them to run as fast as they could to a nearby building.
Re, a tennis player from Quebec, said police ordered students to stay in their rooms, away from windows, and lock their doors.
Until Monday, the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history was in Killeen, Texas, in 1991, when George Hennard plowed his pickup truck into a Luby's Cafeteria and shot 23 people to death, then himself.
The massacre Monday took place almost eight years to the day after the Columbine High bloodbath near Littleton, Colo. On April 20, 1999, two teenagers killed 12 fellow students and a teacher before taking their own lives.
Previously, the deadliest campus shooting in U.S. history was a rampage that took place in 1966 at the University of Texas at Austin, where Charles Whitman climbed the clock tower and opened fire with a rifle from the 28th-floor observation deck. He killed 16 people before he was shot to death by police.
Founded in 1872, Virginia Tech is nestled in the Blue Ridge Mountains of southwestern Virginia, about 260 kilometres west of Richmond. With more than 25,000 full-time students, it has the state's largest full-time student population. The school is best known for its engineering school and its powerhouse Hokies football team.
The rampage took place on a brisk spring day, with snow flurries swirling around the campus.
The campus is centred around the Drill Field, a grassy field where military cadets - who now represent a fraction of the student body - once practised. The dorm and the classroom building are on opposites sides of the Drill Field.
A White House spokesman said U.S. President George W. Bush was horrified by the rampage and offered his prayers to the victims and the people of Virginia. "The president believes that there is a right for people to bear arms, but that all laws must be followed," spokeswoman Dana Perino said
After the shootings, all entrances to the campus were closed, and classes were cancelled through Tuesday. The university set up a meeting place for families to reunite with their children. It also made counsellors available and planned an assembly for Tuesday at the basketball arena.
Police said there had been bomb threats on campus over the past two weeks but they have not determined a link to the shootings.
It was second time in less than a year that the campus was closed because of a shooting.
Last August, the opening day of classes was cancelled and the campus closed when an escaped jail inmate allegedly killed a hospital guard off campus and fled to the Tech area. A sheriff's deputy involved in the manhunt was killed on a trail just off campus. The accused gunman, William Morva, faces capital murder charges.
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A list of some major violent incidents at North American schools:
April 16, 2007: Deadliest shooting rampage in U.S. history as gunman opens fire in a dorm and classroom at Virginia Tech University in Blacksburg, Virginia. The toll is 33 dead, including the gunman, who committed suicide.
Oct. 2, 2006: A 32-year-old gunman enters an Amish schoolhouse in Nickel Mines, Pa., and holds 10 girls hostage before shooting them. Five girls are killed, and five more wounded. The gunman also kills himself.
Sept. 13, 2006: Kimveer Gill, 25, opens fire at Dawson College in Montreal, killing one woman and injuring 20 people.
Aug. 30, 2006: 19-year-old man in Hillsborough, N.C., kills father, then opens fire at Orange High School, wounding two students before surrendering to police.
March 14, 2006: 14-year-old boy in Reno, Nev., bring's father's revolver to Pine Middle School and wounds two classmates.
Jan. 13, 2006: 15-year-old boy at Milwee Middle School in Longwood, Fla., holds class hostage at gunpoint before being fatally shot by police. It is later learned his weapon was a pellet gun.
Nov. 8, 2005: Student at high school in Jacksboro, Tenn., shoots and kills assistant principal. Principal and another assistant principal wounded.
March 21, 2005: 16-year-old boy in Red Lake, Minn., fatally shoots grandfather and grandfather's partner at home, then goes to Red Lake High School, where he kills five students, a teacher and a security guard before committing suicide.
May 7, 2004: Two men, 18 and 24, shoot and wound four students at high school in Randallstown, Md.
March 30, 2004: Student at Wallace High School in Gary, Ind., shot to death in school parking lot by classmate.
Feb. 3, 2004: 14-year-old boy in Palmetto Bay, Fla., stabs and slits throat of 14-year-old classmate at Southwood Middle School.
Feb. 2, 2004: 19-year-old man shoots to death 17-year-old boy at Ballou Senior High School in Washington, D.C.
Sept. 24, 2003: 15-year-old boy shoots two classmates at Rocori High School in Cold Spring, Minn. One dies same day, other dies two weeks later.
April 24, 2003: 14-year-old boy shoots principal to death in school cafeteria in Red Lion, Pa., before killing himself.
March 5, 2001: 15-year-old freshman opens fire with .22-calibre pistol at Santana High School in Santee, Calif., killing two students and injuring 13 others.
Jan. 10, 2001: 17-year-old gunman fires shots at Hueneme High School in Oxnard, Calif., before taking female student hostage. He is later shot and killed by police.
May 26, 2000: 13-year-old honours student shoots and kills teacher on last day of classes in Lake Worth, Fla.
April 20, 2000: Four students and one staff member wounded in knife attack at Cairine Wilson High School in Orleans, Ont. Occurs on first anniversary of Columbine massacre.
Feb. 29, 2000: Six-year-old boy shoots six-year-old girl to death in Grade 1 classroom at Buell Elementary School in Mount Morris Township, Mich. Because of his age, boy is not charged.
Dec. 6, 1999: 13-year-old student fires at least 15 shots at Fort Gibson Middle School in Fort Gibson, Okla., wounding four classmates.
Nov. 19, 1999: 12-year-old boy shoots 13-year-old girl in head at school in Deming, N.M. Girl dies next day.
May 20, 1999: 15-year-old boy opens fire at Heritage High School in Conyers, Ga., with .357-calibre Magnum and rifle, wounding six students.
April 28, 1999: 14-year-old boy shoots two students, one fatally, at W.R. Myers High School in Taber, Alta.
April 20, 1999: Two heavily armed teenagers rampage through Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo., killing 12 students and one teacher before committing suicide.
April 16, 1999: High school sophomore fires two shotgun blasts in school hallway in Notus, Idaho. No one injured.
Feb. 8, 1999: Man fires shot at Woodland Elementary School in Verdun, Que. No one injured.
May 21, 1998: 17-year-old boy kills parents, then goes to high school in Springfield, Ore., on shooting rampage, killing two teens and wounding more than 20 people.
May 19, 1998: 18-year-old honours student opens fire at high school in Fayetteville, Tenn., killing classmate who was dating his ex-girlfriend.
April 24, 1998: 15-year-old boy opens fire at eighth-grade dance in Edinboro, Pa., killing teacher.
March 24, 1998: Four girls and teacher shot to death and 10 people wounded during false fire alarm at middle school in Jonesboro, Ark., when two boys, 11 and 13, open fire from woods.
Dec. 1, 1997: Three students die and five wounded at Heath High School in West Paducah, Ky., after 14-year-old boy opens fire.
October 1997: 35-year-old man fatally shoots teacher at Montreal language school for immigrants.
Oct. 1, 1997: 16-year-old boy in Pearl, Miss., shoots two students to death and wounds seven others after stabbing his mother to death.
Feb. 19, 1997: 16-year-old boy takes shotgun and bag of shells to school in Bethel, Alaska, killing principal and student and wounding two others.
October 1994: Two guidance counsellors at Brockton High School in Toronto shot and wounded by student unhappy with grades.
June 1993: Teen wounded outside Gladstone Secondary School in Vancouver in drive-by shooting.
Aug. 24, 1992: Valery Fabrikant, professor at Concordia University in Montreal, goes on shooting rampage at school, killing four colleagues and wounding one.
February 1990: Jilted teenager shoots and wounds estranged girlfriend at General Brock High School in Burlington, Ont.
December 1989: Marc Lepine, 25, shoots dead 14 women at University of Montreal's Ecole polytechnique engineering school, then kills himself.
October 1978: 17-year-old student shoots 16-year-old to death at Sturgeon Creek Regional Secondary School in Winnipeg.
Oct. 27, 1975: Robert Poulin, an 18-year-old militia sharpshooter, shoots six people at Ottawa's Saint Pius X school and then kills himself. One wounded student dies just over a month later. Poulin had killed a girl at a youth home before he went to the school.
May 1975: Michael Slobodian, 16, kills teacher and student and wounds 13 others at Centennial Secondary School in Brampton, Ont., before turning gun on himself.
+++
Most unbelievable to me,
the demise of professor Liviu Librescu
He who had survived the Holocaust itself - he winds up falling prey to the bullets of a one-time madman killer on the prowl...?
May he rest in peace
Prof. Librescu
- not the madman
+++
Gunman kills 32 in Virginia Tech rampage
By SUE LINDSEY, Associated Press Writer
BLACKSBURG, Va. - A gunman massacred 32 people at Virginia Tech in the deadliest shooting rampage in modern U.S. history Monday, cutting down his victims in two attacks two hours apart before the university could grasp what was happening and warn students.
The bloodbath ended with the gunman committing suicide, bringing the death toll to 33 and stamping the campus in the picturesque Blue Ridge Mountains with unspeakable tragedy, perhaps forever.
Investigators gave no motive for the attack. The gunman's name was not immediately released, and it was not known whether he was a student.
"Today the university was struck with a tragedy that we consider of monumental proportions," Virginia Tech President Charles Steger said. "The university is shocked and indeed horrified."
But he was also faced with difficult questions about the university's handling of the emergency and whether it did enough to warn students and protect them after the first burst of gunfire. Some students bitterly complained they got no warning from the university until an e-mail that arrived more than two hours after the first shots rang out.
Wielding two handguns and carrying multiple clips of ammunition, the killer opened fire about 7:15 a.m. on the fourth floor of West Ambler Johnston, a high-rise coed dormitory, then stormed Norris Hall, a classroom building a half-mile away on the other side of the 2,600-acre campus. Some of the doors at Norris Hall were found chained from the inside, apparently by the gunman.
Two people died in a dorm room, and 31 others were killed in Norris Hall, including the gunman, who put a bullet in his head. At least 15 people were hurt, some seriously. Students jumped from windows in panic.
Alec Calhoun, a 20-year-old junior, said he was in a 9:05 a.m. mechanics class when he and classmates heard a thunderous sound from the classroom next door — "what sounded like an enormous hammer."
Screams followed an instant later, and the banging continued. When students realized the sounds were gunshots, Calhoun said, he started flipping over desks for hiding places. Others dashed to the windows of the second-floor classroom, kicking out the screens and jumping from the ledge of Room 204, he said.
"I must've been the eighth or ninth person who jumped, and I think I was the last," said Calhoun, of Waynesboro, Va. He landed in a bush and ran.
Calhoun said that the two students behind him were shot, but that he believed they survived. Just before he climbed out the window, Calhoun said, he turned to look at the professor, who had stayed behind, perhaps to block the door.
The instructor was killed, he said.
At an evening news conference, Police Chief Wendell Flinchum refused to dismiss the possibility that a co-conspirator or second shooter was involved. He said police had interviewed a male who was a "person of interest" in the dorm shooting who knew one of the victims, but he declined to give details.
"I'm not saying there's a gunman on the loose," Flinchum said. Ballistics tests will help explain what happened, he said.
Sheree Mixell, a spokeswoman for the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, said the evidence was being moved to the agency's national lab in Annandale. At least one firearm was turned over, she said.
Mixell would not comment on what types of weapons were used or whether the gunman was a student.
Young people and faculty members carried out some of the wounded themselves, without waiting for ambulances to arrive. Many found themselves trapped behind chained and padlocked doors. SWAT team members with helmets, flak jackets and assault rifles swarmed over the campus. A student used his cell-phone camera to record the sound of bullets echoing through a stone building.
Trey Perkins, who was sitting in a German class in Norris Hall, told The Washington Post that the gunman barged into the room at about 9:50 a.m. and opened fire for about a minute and a half, squeezing off about 30 shots.
The gunman first shot the professor in the head and then fired on the students, Perkins said. The gunman was about 19 years old and had a "very serious but very calm look on his face," he said.
"Everyone hit the floor at that moment," said Perkins, 20, of Yorktown, Va., a sophomore studying mechanical engineering. "And the shots seemed like it lasted forever."
Erin Sheehan, who was also in the German class, told the student newspaper, the Collegiate Times, that she was one of only four of about two dozen people in the class to walk out of the room. The rest were dead or wounded, she said.
She said the gunman "was just a normal-looking kid, Asian, but he had on a Boy Scout-type outfit. He wore a tan button-up vest, and this black vest, maybe it was for ammo or something."
Students said that there were no public-address announcements after the first shots. Many said they learned of the first shooting in an e-mail that arrived shortly before the gunman struck again.
"I think the university has blood on their hands because of their lack of action after the first incident," said Billy Bason, 18, who lives on the seventh floor of the dorm.
Steger defended the university's conduct, saying authorities believed that the shooting at the dorm was a domestic dispute and mistakenly thought the gunman had fled the campus.
"We had no reason to suspect any other incident was going to occur," he said.
Steger emphasized that the university closed off the dorm after the first attack and decided to rely on e-mail and other electronic means to spread the word, but said that with 11,000 people driving onto campus first thing in the morning, it was difficult to get the word out.
He said that before the e-mail went out, the university began telephoning resident advisers in the dorms and sent people to knock on doors. Students were warned to stay inside and away from the windows.
"We can only make decisions based on the information you had at the time. You don't have hours to reflect on it," Steger said.
Some students and Laura Wedin, a student programs manager at Virginia Tech, said their first notification came in an e-mail at 9:26 a.m., more than two hours after the first shooting.
The e-mail had few details. It read: "A shooting incident occurred at West Amber Johnston earlier this morning. Police are on the scene and are investigating." The message warned students to be cautious and contact police about anything suspicious.
Edmund Henneke, associate dean of engineering, said that he was in the classroom building and that he and colleagues had just read the e-mail advisory and were discussing it when he heard gunfire. He said that moments later SWAT team members rushed them downstairs, but that the doors were chained and padlocked from the inside. They left the building through an unlocked construction area.
Until Monday, the deadliest shooting in modern U.S. history was in Killeen, Texas, in 1991, when George Hennard plowed his pickup truck into a Luby's Cafeteria and shot 23 people to death, then himself.
The massacre Monday took place almost eight years to the day after the Columbine High bloodbath near Littleton, Colo. On April 20, 1999, two teenagers killed 12 fellow students and a teacher before taking their own lives.
Previously, the deadliest campus shooting in U.S. history was a rampage in 1966 at the University of Texas at Austin, where Charles Whitman climbed the clock tower and opened fire. He killed 16 people before police shot him to death.
Founded in 1872, Virginia Tech is about 160 miles west of Richmond. With more than 25,000 full-time students, it has the state's largest full-time student population. It is best known for its engineering school and its powerhouse Hokies football team.
The campus is centered on the Drill Field, a grassy field where military cadets practice. The dorm and the classroom building are on opposites sides of the Drill Field.
President Bush offered his prayers to the victims and the people of Virginia, saying the tragedy would be felt in every community in the country.
After the shootings, all campus entrances were closed, and classes were canceled through Tuesday. The university set up a spot for families to reunite with their children. It also made counselors available and planned an assembly Tuesday.
Police said there had been bomb threats on campus over the past two weeks but said they had not determined a link to the shootings.
It was second time in less than a year that the campus was closed because of a shooting.
In August, the opening day of classes was canceled when an escaped jail inmate allegedly killed a hospital guard off campus and fled to the Tech area. A sheriff's deputy was killed just off campus. The accused gunman, William Morva, faces capital murder charges.
Among Monday's dead was Ryan Clark, a student from Martinez, Ga., with several majors who carried a 4.0 grade-point average, said Vernon Collins, coroner in Columbia County, Ga.
At a hastily arranged service Monday night at Blacksburg Presbyterian Church, the Rev. Susan Verbrugge gazed out at about 150 bowed heads.
"Death has come trundling into our life, a sudden and savage entity laying waste to our hearts and making desolate our minds," Verbrugge said during a prayer. "We need now the consolation only you can give."
Among the dead were professors Liviu Librescu and Kevin Granata, said Ishwar K. Puri, the head of the engineering science and mechanics department.
Librescu, was born in Romania and was known internationally for his research in aeronautical engineering, Puri wrote in an e-mail to The Associated Press.
"His research has enabled better aircraft, superior composite materials, and more robust aerospace structures," Puri said.
Granata served in the military and later conducted orthopedic research in hospitals before coming to Virginia Tech, where he and his students researched muscle and reflex response and robotics. Puri called him one of the top five biomechanics researchers in the country working on movement dynamics in cerebral palsy.
Va. Tech gunman sent material to NBC
By MATT APUZZO, AP National Writer
BLACKSBURG, Va. - Between his first and second bursts of gunfire, the Virginia Tech gunman mailed a package to NBC headquarters in New York containing photos of him brandishing guns and video of him delivering an angry, profanity-laced tirade about rich kids and hedonism.
"You had a hundred billion chances and ways to have avoided today," 23-year-old Cho Seung-Hui says in a harsh monotone, in an excerpt shown on "NBC Nightly News." "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."
NBC said the package contained an 1,800-word diatribe and 29 photos, 11 of them showing him aiming handguns at the camera. Much of the rant is incoherent and filled with obscenities. He rails against Christianity and the rich.
"Your Mercedes wasn't enough, you brats," he says, apparently reading from a manifesto. "Your golden necklaces weren't enough you snobs. Your trust funds wasn't enough. Your vodka and cognac wasn't enough. All your debaucheries weren't enough. Those weren't enough to fulfill your hedonistic needs. You had everything.
The package, which arrived at NBC two days after Cho killed 32 people and committed suicide in the deadliest one-man shooting rampage in modern U.S. history, bore a Postal Service stamp showing that it had been mailed at a Virginia post office at 9:01 a.m. Monday, about an hour and 45 minutes after Cho first opened fire.
That would explain one of the biggest mysteries about the massacre: Where the gunman was and what he did during that two-hour window between the first burst of gunfire at a high-rise dorm, and the second attack, at a classroom building.
Some of the pictures show him smiling. Some depict him brandishing two weapons at a time, one in each hand. He wears a khaki-colored military-style vest, fingerless gloves, a black T-shirt, a backpack and a backwards, black baseball cap. Another photo shows him swinging a hammer two-fisted. Another shows an angry-looking Cho holds a gun to his temple.
The package was sent by overnight delivery but did not arrive at NBC until Wednesday morning. It had apparently been delayed because it had the wrong ZIP code, NBC said.
An alert postal employee brought the package to NBC's attention after noticing the Blacksburg return address and a name similar to the words reportedly found scrawled in red ink on Cho's arm after the bloodbath, "Ismail Ax," NBC said.
"I didn't have to do it. I could have left. I could have fled," he says. "But now I am no longer running. If not for me, for my children and my brothers and sisters that you (expletive). I did it for them."
He also makes references to the Columbine High massacre and the teenage killers, according to NBC.
Virginia Tech massacre claims former Nova Scotia French teacher
Tue Apr 17, 8:08 PM
By Les Perreaux And Michael Tutton, The Canadian Press
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You dream it. We have it.
(CP) - Jocelyne Couture-Nowak paid a bloody price for being a proud French-Canadian when a gunman stormed the Virginia Tech classroom where she was spreading the language she loved.
The Quebec native and former Nova Scotian died in Monday's shooting rampage while she was teaching French at Virginia Tech, the scene of a massacre that claimed 33 people.
Couture-Nowak's husband confirmed her death Tuesday in a brief conversation before returning to grieve with friends and family in Blacksburg, Va.
The woman in her late 40s was a French instructor at the university where her husband Jerzy Nowak is a professor of horticulture.
"Listen, I'm not giving any interviews, we're mourning," Nowak said in a brief telephone conversation with The Canadian Press.
Couture-Nowak is survived by two daughters, one named Sylvie who is in her mid-teens, and a grown daughter named Francine, according to friend Claire Russell.
"As mothers, we immediately think of the daughters, and you know, they have lost their mother, and nobody should have that happen to them," said Russell.
"How did she react in that room, with the students? I can see Jocelyne being the first one to protect all of those children who belong to other people."
Nowak told Australia's Herald Sun that he sat anxiously by the phone fearing the worst throughout the day on Monday. He finally heard the news from a university official around 11 p.m.
Elizabeth Taggart, a former student in Couture-Nowak's Virginia Tech classes, said her teacher was an inspiration for her energy and determination to keep her language alive.
"She was friendly, vivacious, always smiling," Taggart said from her home in Reston, Va.
"She was fantastic. She would talk to me about trying to raise her children to be bilingual and would give me tips of how not to lose my French. She really left a mark for me."
Taggart met regularly with Couture-Nowak since completing her French course because she still studied Spanish in a nearby classroom. She happened to be absent Monday because of travel delays.
"I am very lucky," she said.
Originally from the Montreal region, Couture-Nowak completed her studies at the Nova Scotia Teachers College before it closed in 1997.
She lived in Truro, N.S., in the 1990s where her husband was a plant science professor. She was instrumental in the push to create the town's first French school called the Ecole acadienne de Truro in 1997.
Sylvie was enrolled in Grade 1 as one of the first students, according to Russell, who was a teacher at the school. She described the school as her friend's legacy.
"She was one of three mothers who were really the founders of the school," said Richard Landry, a spokesman with the francophone school board in the province.
"She gave a lot of importance to French education."
Nicole Bagnell was another of the three founding mothers and she was a close friend of Couture-Nowak.
Bagnell described the bond they shared as francophone women trying to bring up their children in a sea of English.
They spoke a little over a year ago about Couture-Nowak's life in the United States.
"She was still happy to be there. Her daughter was doing well with the change," she said.
"She was assuring me at that time that her daughter Sylvie would still speak French to her and she would still take courses."
Bagnell choked up as she considered the trauma on the two daughters.
"Jerzy is a very good dad," she said. "For the girl, Sylvie, Papa is there. But it's going to be difficult at 12 years old to lose your mommy."
Couture-Nowak's aunt, Suzanne Couture, said the woman left Quebec years ago to complete her education and the family has scattered across the continent. They hadn't spoken in a long time, she said.
"At the beginning, when we first heard what was going on, we had a lot of hope," said Couture, a resident of St-Bruno, near Montreal.
"She's a strong woman, she's full of force, it doesn't seem possible."
Couture-Nowak taught for several years as a part-time French instructor at the Nova Scotia Agricultural College.
Bernie MacDonald, the school's vice-president of administration, described Couture-Nowak as a teacher who had "a passion and love for French" and an exuberant personality."
"She was a very vibrant person, very enthusiastic, very dynamic," he said, adding she smiled each time he passed her in the hall.
"It's incomprehensible what's happened."
The community college was flying its flags at half-mast on Tuesday.
The family moved from Nova Scotia about eight years ago when Nowak became a professor of horticulture at Virginia Tech.
They were on the move again more recently, selling their home in Blacksburg this month to move into a new place.
Kathy Mills-LoBella bought the family's old house and met Couture-Nowak at the closing.
"We knew she was Canadian," she said. "She mentioned she was French-Canadian."
Mills-LoBella said she heard the students in Couture-Nowak's class wanted to push a desk in front of the door before the gunman could get it in.
"They didn't do it in time," she said.
A posting on a website dedicated to rating teachers described Couture-Nowak as "an excellent teacher" who "is extremely nice and understanding."
Another student described her as "a little matronly."
One student who identified herself as DeAnne Leigh Pelchat wrote of her gratitude to Couture-Nowak on another website.
"I will forever remember you and what you have done for me and the others that benefit from what you did in the little town of Truro," Pelchat said.
"Your help in creating a French school was essential and I appreciate it even more now that I am in university."
"You'll always have a place in my heart," Pelchat concludes in French.
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