Panel leader willing to fix Tech report
The head of a state panel that investigated the Virginia Tech massacre says he would be willing to fix any serious errors in the massive report, an action being demanded by some agitated parents of the dead and wounded.
But Col. Gerald Massengill, who headed the governor-appointed panel, said, "I don't know if it really needs to be done. . . . If the governor feels it's important enough to have an appendix, to get it straight, we would want to interview people involved, we would want to do things not available at the time."
Massengill, a former Virginia State Police superintendent, said he sympathized with the parents who want the 300-page report to be accurate for history's sake.
In places, the report is critical of Virginia Tech's handling of the unfolding massacre of 32 students and teachers.
"But people have to realize that there won't be any changes to its conclusions or the recommendations,'' Massengill said of the report.
Meanwhile, Gov. Timothy M. Kaine, who in two meetings over the weekend spoke with as many as 60 parents of the dead and wounded as well as wounded Tech students, said he would review any mistakes in the Massengill report brought to his attention.
Gordon Hickey, a spokesman for the governor, said Kaine told the Tech parents and students that if they "knew of inaccuracies, they should compile them and give them to the governor's office. Then we'll look at them and decide what to do."
Virginia Tech spokesman Larry Hincker said in an e-mail to The Times-Dispatch that any review of the Massengill panel findings is "the governor's decision, so we can't really comment.
Massengill defended the report as comprehensive and as accurate as possible, given the time constraints. "We took the best information we had at the time. This was not a law enforcement investigation.'' Massengill said the panel was under a deadline because the state wanted the panel's recommendations before the start of the next school year.
The panel was convened to examine the events of April 16, 2007, in which Tech student Seung-Hui Cho shot and killed 32 students and teachers and wounded numerous other students before killing himself.
Some details in the report were wrong and showed, for example, that Tech officials were unsure of the killer's motives in the first shootings and whereabouts for longer than previously thought.
Despite that uncertainty, Tech officials still delayed in warning students that a killer was on the loose. In the initial shootings, Cho killed two students at West Ambler Johnson dormitory and then waited for about two hours before killing students inside Norris Hall.
Many parents of the dead and wounded are angry that Tech did not warn students earlier that a killer was on the loose. Some called for the firing of Tech President Charles W. Steger.
Advertisement