Tech gets maximum fine in massacre response

Virginia Tech will be fined $55,000 — the maximum amount allowable — for federal violations in how the university handled what became the nation's deadliest mass shooting in modern history, the U.S. Department of Education said Tuesday.

Tech said it will appeal the fines, arguing that its actions the morning of April 16, 2007, when 33 people died, including the shooter, "were well within the standards and practices in effect at that time."

The Education Department affirmed its December decision that found Tech in violation of the Clery Act for waiting two hours and 15 minutes to issue a warning after the first two students were slain in a residence hall at 7:15 a.m. About 2½ hours after those shootings, senior Seung-Hui Cho killed 30 other students and professors in a classroom building before shooting himself.

In a letter to Tech President Charles W. Steger, the department said the university was in violation of two provisions of the law for not issuing a timely warning and for not following its own published procedures for handling a threat. The maximum fine for each violation is $27,500.

The DOE letter noted the campus wasn't alerted of the first shooting until 9:26 a.m., and that the vaguely worded message did not mention a murder had occurred or that no killer had been identified. It did not advise the campus to take safety measures.

An earlier message would have reached students before they left for their 9:05 a.m. classes, the letter said, citing the state's investigation of the massacre.

At 8:25 a.m., police canceled bank deposit pickups because of the first shootings, and some university officials had already alerted family members and others, the letter said. At 8:52 a.m., Blacksburg public schools were locked down, and one Tech administrator ordered his doors locked. By about 9 a.m., trash pickup was canceled, as were classes at Tech's veterinary college.

But Tech's second, more explicit warning to the community was not sent until 9:50 a.m., after the shootings at Norris Hall had started. At 10:17 a.m., about 26 minutes after the shootings ended, a third message was sent canceling classes and advising everyone to remain in place, the letter said.

Tech spokesman Larry Hincker said the government appears to be holding the university accountable for a federal standard adopted in response to the shootings. He called that "inconsistent with regulatory process or traditional jurisprudence."

The 1990 Jeanne Clery Act, named for a 19-year-old Lehigh University student who was raped and murdered in her residence hall, was revised in 2008 to more explicitly require immediate notification of crimes on campus.

However, the letter notes that at the time of the Tech killings the law required that timely warning "should be issued as soon as the pertinent information is available." It said Tech "failed to act reasonably in waiting two hours and fifteen minutes to issue a notice of any kind to the campus community."

Although Tech received the maximum fine, it isn't the largest action taken against a university. Eastern Michigan University in 2008 agreed to pay $350,000 for multiple violations that came to light after a student was murdered in her residence hall in 2006.

Asked why Tech did not agree to pay the fine, which would close the case, Hincker said the appeal "is the only route we have under DOE's procedure to have our voice heard. Indeed, they told us that if they hadn't fined us, we would have had no recourse."

He said by email that the department never interviewed "any Virginia Tech people. They have never shared with us any source materials. ... They have never explained how a notice given at one campus many hours after similar events is permissible, but not when it relates to our tragedy."

Andrew Goddard, whose son Colin was wounded four times during his French class, said the "amount is so minuscule that (Tech) should just pay up and be done with it."

Goddard has become a gun-control advocate with his son, who tells his story in the documentary "Living for 32."

The elder Goddard said he was not surprised by Tech's decision to appeal because "they seem to be in denial on many fronts."

kkapsidelis@timesdispatch.com

(804) 649-6119