Kaine to consider correction to Va. Tech shootings report

By News in Brief
Published: December 1, 2008

Gov. Timothy M. Kaine says he will consider making corrections to the report issued by the panel that investigated the Virginia Tech mass shootings after meeting with victims and family members over the weekend.

Kaine said the private meetings made him realize how important it was to them for the report to be factually correct. He said while he looked at the report more for the recommendations to avoid future tragedies, the families viewed it as the only historical account of what happened on April 16, 2007.

“Scrupulous accuracy about the facts is very important to them in a way that I could appreciate after talking to them,” Kaine said after a two-and-a-half-hour meeting at the Capitol on Nov. 23. He met with families for about three hours in Northern Virginia the previous day.

“There was never a trial where the story was told, so a report like that is the telling of the story as far as they’re concerned,” he said.

Kaine appointed an eight-member panel following the shootings that left 33 dead, including student gunman Seung-Hui Cho. The panel had four months to investigate the killings before issuing a report that criticized the school’s actions and offered recommendations for the future.

Some families conducted their own investigations into the events, and have found conflicting accounts of the timeline of events and other discrepancies.

Cho killed the two students in the dormitory about 7:15 that morning and 30 people in a classroom building 2 1/2 hours later. An e-mail alerting the campus to the first shootings wasn’t sent until about 15 minutes before Cho’s Norris Hall rampage, and some family members and the Kaine-appointed panel criticized the university for not sending an earlier warning.

“I think he gets the message that the report was not just a means for generating change, it was also a historical document, and we want to make sure that as a historical document is valuable in that it is correct,” Andrew Goddard, whose son Colin was shot four times but survived, said after the meeting.

Goddard said it was also important that any future legal or policy decisions be based on “something that is factual rather than something that is kind-of right.”

Kaine said he probably would not reconvene the panel, as some families have requested, but likely would ask the families to come up with changes they would like to see so his staff could verify the information and make the changes.

He said he thought the panel did a good job considering the time constraints he placed on it.

Kaine’s meeting was one of three with him required as part of a settlement to avoid lawsuits over the shootings. The families also have had lengthy meetings with Tech officials and Virginia State Police.

The families once again raised the issue of accountability, Kaine said. Some have pushed for Virginia Tech president Charles Steger and other officials to be replaced.

“They have raised that issue in a very direct way … and that’s one that we’re going to think about,” Kaine said.

Kaine said he likely would not meet with the families again until after the legislative session this winter. He said he reminded the families that they had been responsible for important changes, including 25 Virginia laws enacted after the shootings dealing with education, guns, mental health and other areas.

Goddard said he feels that Kaine has listened to the families and will take their concerns to heart. “He’s never gone back on his word,” he said.

Virginia Lawyers Weekly

Kaine to consider correction to Va. Tech shootings report

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