What happened today in Blacksburg, Virginia, surely has many thinking back to the 1999 massacre at Columbine High School. But I am also reminded, in part because I have Hokie co-workers, of the 1998 killings at Thurston High School. Thurston is in Springfield, Oregon, just next door to Eugene, where I was in my freshman year at the University of Oregon.
What was first reported as loud noises soon horrifically became 24 down and three killed, counting the killer’s parents, murdered the night before. Despite my relative proximity to the crime scene, but perhaps not surprisingly, I remember it mostly through the media: The initial radio report whence I’d first heard that “gunshots rang out” at Thurston, then a friend of a friend who was there calling in to CNN’s now-defunct Talkback Live and, much later, Rolling Stone’s in-depth coverage and the Frontline documentary.
One thing we didn’t have was Facebook. Today, students with accounts who couldn’t get through to their family and friends have been using it to let people know they’re all right:
In fact, a new group was started today called I’m ok at VT, already with 1,983 members. Remember Virginia Tech (4/16/07) has 1,885. An event concurrent with this very post, Student Gathering at the Drill Field, has 99 confirmed guests. And I’m sure that I’m only scratching the surface.
ABC News has taken notice of the activity, plastering an image (below left) of Facebook on their front page and quoting one registered user (whom I couldn’t locate) taking strong exception to the administration’s handling of the initial murders:
They could have prevented most of this…shooting at 730 in WAJ, classes don’t start til 8, why couldn’t they cancel classes for the day … SOMEONE WAS SHOT AND IT TURNS OUT THEY DIED … I THINK THATS GROUNDS TO CANCEL CLASS RATHER THAN SENDING OUT AN EMAIL THAT SAYS USE CAUTION AND REPORT ANYTHING TO POLICE. They could have save almost 20 lives and 20 injuries if they just decided to cancel class right away.
Facebook is a fairly closed system, so I would normally say it wouldn’t become part of the permanent record of this event. But this event is also a criminal investigation, and it’s entirely possible the killer will have an account of his own. Or maybe a MySpace page — he wouldn’t be the first mass killer to have one.
If the rumor is true — originating on the TechSideline.com Hokie fan board (via Hot Air via Dan Riehl) that “this all started with an ex-boyfriend finding his girlfriend in bed with another guy,” would you really be surprised if he’d blogged about it first?
How could the school and security officials think that letting students come closer to a crime scene was safer than closing & locking down the campus? This is especially troubling given the fact that they still hadn’t captured the shooter. Unreal.