WORLD / America
5-minute delay crucial in Tech shooting
(AP)
Updated: 2007-04-26 15:38
BLACKSBURG, Va. - The Virginia Tech gunman started his day of mayhem
lurking outside a dormitory before 7 a.m. Moments later, he sneaked
inside and shot his first two victims with two lethal rounds from a 9 mm
pistol.
Virginia State Police Superintendent W. Steven Flaherty, gestures during
a press conference at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Va., Wednesday, April
25, 2007. [AP]
The next wave of carnage involved much more firepower. Police said he
unleashed 170 rounds on the classrooms of Norris Hall during a
nine-minute rampage. Thirty people were killed in the building; more were
wounded.
During that spree, police spent three minutes rushing to the building and
then about five minutes carrying out the complicated process of breaking
through the building's doors, which Seung-Hui Cho had chained.
A timeline of Cho's morning and the final moments of his life emerged
Wednesday during a news conference by police who are still struggling to
figure out why the 23-year-old student carried out the rampage.
The five minutes police spent breaking into the building proved to be
crucial as Cho moved through Norris Hall unimpeded, with police locked
out.
Authorities eventually blew their way into the building, and as they
began to rush toward the gunfire on the second floor, Cho put a bullet
through his head and died, surrounded by his victims.
State police spokeswoman Corinne Geller praised the officers' response
time, noting that had police simply rushed into the building without a
plan, many would have likely died right along with the staff and
students. She said officers needed to assemble the proper team, clear the
area and then break through the doors.
"If you go in with your backs turned, you're never going back," Geller
said. "There's got to be some sort of organization."
Some police and security experts question the five-minute delay, saying
authorities should have charged straight into the melee.
"You don't have time to wait," said Aaron Cohen, president of IMS
Security of Los Angeles, who has trained SWAT teams around the country
since 2003. "You don't have time to pre-plan a response. Even if you have
a few guys, you go."
After the Columbine massacre in 1999, police around the country adopted
new policies for so-called "active shooters." Police would no longer
respond to emergencies such as school shootings by surrounding a building
and waiting for the SWAT team.
Instead, the first four officers rush into the building and attempt to
immediately end the threat. This system was used to end a 2003 school
hostage standoff in Spokane, Wash.
At Columbine, no officers entered the building until about 40 minutes
after the first 911 call from the school. Critics have said that decision
might have contributed to the death of a teacher who bled to death from
gunshot wounds.
Tom Corrigan, former member of a terrorism task force and a retired New
York City detective, said five minutes seems like a long time when
gunfire is being heard, but he added it's tough to second-guess officers
in such a chaotic situation.
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