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Panel criticizes Va. Tech response

A state panel on the shootings releases report.

RICHMOND, Va. - Virginia Tech officials might have saved lives if they had notified faculty and students sooner about the first shootings on campus, concluded a panel investigating the April 16 shootings that killed 33.

"Warning the students, faculty and staff might have made a difference. ... So the earlier and clearer the warning, the more chance an individual had of surviving," said the report, which was released late Wednesday.

However, the report concluded that a campus lockdown was not feasible. It would take 400 to 500 security officers to do the job, while only 14 of the school's 41 officers are on duty at 8 a.m. on a weekday, the report said.

Gunman Seung-Hui Cho was also an insider, a student with an ID card to access campus buildings and the ability to get the same messages as everyone else.

The eight-member panel, appointed by Gov. Timothy Kaine, spent four months investigating the shootings.

Its report also concluded that while Cho had demonstrated numerous signs of mental instability, the university did not intervene effectively.

The panel said the university's counseling center failed to provide needed support and services to Cho when he was referred for treatment in 2005 after a stretch of bizarre behavior and concerns that he was suicidal.

The report also noted that records of Cho's "minimal treatment" are missing.

The report said the university's emergency response plan was deficient in several respects: It did not include provisions for a shooting scenario and did not place police high enough in the emergency decisionmaking hierarchy. It also did not include a threat assessment team.

Kaine said earlier Wednesday he did not conclude from the report that either the Virginia Tech president or campus police chief should resign.

[Last modified August 30, 2007, 01:44:56]