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Introduction and Thanks
Panel Expertise
Areas for Review
Honing the Focus
Openness and Transparency

Good morning, Col. Massengill and all members of the Panel.

It is very good to be with you this morning and to begin a process that I believe will lead to good in this Commonwealth and beyond.

In response to a major tragedy of any kind, in our personal lives or in society, we have to learn all we can about what has happened and why and what we can do to better prepare in the future. Today we take a very important step in that process.

Introduction and Thanks 

To begin I want to express again my deep condolences to all in the Virginia Tech family who have been so affected by the shooting on campus on April 16.

First, to those who have lost their lives and the family members – this loss is so grievous, and so much promise and accomplishment was cut short on that day. I think everyone who had a chance to just read the biographies of these 32 individuals who were killed had a sense of what a remarkable group of people who were accomplishing remarkable things and had so much more to accomplish. We extend our deepest sympathy to them.

Second, we extend our best wishes to those who have been injured and are still recovering. The recoveries of many seem to be going in a good way, but we know that there are wounds still to heal, scars still to heal, for those who have been wounded. Our hearts go out to those students and others and their family members, and to all in the broader community – because there are many who were not physically wounded that day, but who will carry some very, very difficult memories and scars with them going forward – and our hearts go out to all members of the community.

We owe it – we owe it – to the victims, to those who were killed, to those who were wounded, to family members and friends. We owe it to these people to learn everything we can about what happened and why on that day, but more importantly, through your combined expertise, to come up with ideas about how we can be better and stronger in the future.

I want to express my appreciation to the Virginia Tech community – the administration, the faculty, the students – who have come together in such a remarkable way during this difficult time.

You can tell a lot about a people and a community about how they respond to tragedy. And the Virginia Tech community, while dealing with the darkest moment in its campus’s history, has responded and come together in a truly powerful way and for that a lot of credit has to go to the President Charles Steger, who is here today. You’ll hear from him in a few moments.

But to a whole range of students and professors and EMTs and law enforcement professionals, I know you’ll get to know this community well over the course of your analysis and I suspect that you’ll come to have the same high degree of regard for them as so many in Virginia have.

And finally I want to thank you, you members of the Panel who have signed on for a very important task that I suspect will also be a difficult one.

Panel Expertise 

The eight members of this review panel are nationally recognized in many different fields. You bring expertise in the area of law enforcement, security, governmental management, mental health, emergency care, victim services, the Virginia court system, higher education – all these different [professional skills] that you bring to the table together.

And as I had a chance to share with you briefly a few moments ago, the combined expertise you bring to the Panel has already been, even before your first meeting, a source of comfort for people who are trying to find answers to this difficult question.

I’ve spent a lot of time on the phone in the last couple of weeks talking to family members who have been affected by this tragedy, and again and again, they’ve suggested to me that they’re following this panel and that the expertise and backgrounds you bring to the table give them some reason for comfort – that if there is anything redeeming out of this horrible tragedy, it will be that we learn every lesson we can and try to get better.

They have a confidence we will because of who you are. I want to thank you for that. And thank you for the time you are committing. Governor Ridge said to me, “I didn’t have time to do this, but I didn’t have time not to do it. I really decided that I had to make time to.”

I know that is probably the case for each one of you. I’ve asked you because you’re good at what you do, which means you’re busy. But to give up significant time over the course of the next few months to wrestle with this issue is something that all Virginians appreciate.  We stand in your debt.

I’ve asked you, the Review Panel, to conduct this independent – emphasize independent – thorough, objective review of the events of April 16 and our response to those events and to give to all of us your best judgment on how we can improve going forward. I’d like to take a few moments to elaborate upon that charge.

Areas for Review 

In calling for the independent review, I have asked the Review Panel to develop a detailed factual analysis first of the Virginia Tech tragedy. And then once that factual narrative is in place and the questions have been answered, to offer recommendations in light of those facts and circumstances. I have asked that the factual review focus on three primary areas.

First, we should find out any information we can about Seung Hui-Cho, focusing on how and why he committed 32 murders. We need to know all we can about how he acquired the firearms he used. We need to know more about his mental illness, circumstances under which he sought treatment for that illness, the way those efforts were responded to and how they were followed up with, and how he interacted ultimately with the mental health system in Fairfax and Blacksburg as attempts were made there for treatment.

Second, it’s important for the panel to work through the timeline of events from the time Seung Hui-Cho entered West Ambler Johnston dormitory until his death in Norris Hall, including a consideration of the response to the first murders, and then the efforts to stop the Norris Hall murders once they began.

And finally, you should assess our response as a Commonwealth and all its agencies following the death of Seung Hui-Cho. This would include a review of the medical care for the injured and wounded, medical examination of victims, on-campus actions following the tragedy, counseling provide to those in need, and services provided to victims’ families.

You should look at all aspects of the response – how the state responded, how Virginia Tech responded, how the local law enforcement agencies responded, how hospitals responded – that is very important as well.

In looking at each of those three factual areas, everything we know about Seung Hui-Cho, everything we know about the shootings, and everything we know about the response, we hope then that analysis will then lead you to make recommendations to us in any of those areas so that we can be stronger.

The effort should proceed with a sense of urgency because Virginians have questions that are urgent. Accuracy and thoroughness is more important than haste, but I think we all have a sense of urgency about this.

I would hope that the panel could complete its factual review and offer significant recommendations prior to the beginning of the school year in the fall on college campuses around Virginia and around this country. That will enable recommendations to be used by college campuses as they look at what they may want to do to keep their students safer. 

That will also give legislators and policy makers in Virginia a chance to consider recommendations and dialogue about them, maybe even discuss them with you prior to the beginning of the legislative session in January, where we may take up recommendations that you make.

To the extent that you need additional time beyond the start of the school year to finalize or issue additional recommendations, obviously we would be very accommodating of that because again, accuracy is more important than haste – but I believe we all have a sense of urgency about the need to do this work.

Honing the Focus 

While I don’t at all intend or want to limit the scope of the panel’s review – the scope of the review should be your scope, rather than mine – I thought I would offer a couple of words  about keeping the review focused in a way that will be of most benefit.
During the review that this panel conducts, I don’t expect you to conduct a comprehensive review of the entire Commonwealth’s mental health system, which would replicate work that is currently being done by the Virginia Supreme Court Chief Justice Hassell’s Commission on Mental Health Reform.

It is enough, though, to consider all the mental health aspects of Seung Hui-Cho, his interactions with the mental health system and how the circumstances in this particular incident would suggest the need for reforms and improvements.

Similarly, I would not expect the panel to conduct a comprehensive review of either Virginia or national gun laws. But any aspect of the gun laws that impact upon this particular case – on the ease with which Seung Hui-Cho was able to buy weapons and ammunition and how that happened, and circumstances about the interplay between gun laws and the mental health laws of Virginia, that is a very important thing to do. We’ve already taken some steps in that regard, but I think that it is important to look at gun laws, but look at them as they affect this particular incident.

But I do expect though and I know you expect as well, that you’ll look at how existing laws, programs and policies affected what took place on April 16. What went right, what went wrong, what practices turned out to be best practices, and I think the panel as it undertakes its review is going to find that a lot of things went very right, and that story needs to be told as well.

And those best practices, even if they went right – that story needs to be told so that others can learn from things we did well, as well as things that should have been done better.

The whole goal is how we can improve in the future and from that vantage point, the panel can provide recommendations for actions to protect our Commonwealth, to maintain our wonderful system of higher education.  The recommendations have to be put in a context of “We don’t want to fundamentally change the character of a college campus or the higher education experience.” How we provide help for those in need, how we provide easier access to mental health services, these will be subjects that you will take up.

I do believe that the recommendations that you make will have a far-reaching impact, not simply being recommendations for Virginia Tech but recommendations that could affect any college campus in Virginia, possibly many college campuses nationally. And then beyond college campuses, to communities that wrestle with mental health or security or how do you notify people. So many of us wrestle with those questions, I believe the work of this panel can have a far reaching impact.  

I do believe that work we have already done together – even before your first meeting – in recognizing a loophole in Virginia law, or kind of a disharmony about the way courts were reporting information about mental health adjudications into the federal gun database – our recognition of that has not only enabled us to fix that in Virginia, but to make plain to Americans something I didn’t know, and I think most Americans didn’t:
And that is that, while it has been unlawful for someone with a mental illness to purchase a weapon for many years, the vast majority of American states don’t put any mental health adjudication data into the gun database allowing licensed gun dealers to check those adjudications.

Just as that created awareness nationally of a fix that needs some attention, I suspect that your recommendations will benefit not just Virginia but will give some good ideas to people across this country about what we should do.

Let me say one final word before I depart about the way you conduct the review, and I say this with a great deal of confidence because I know most of you, I know all of you by reputation, but I know in a very personal way your chair, Col. Massengill.

Openness and Transparency 

I would like this review to be conducted in as open and as public and as transparent a way as possible. The degree to which there is opportunity for the public to have input, to share their ideas and thoughts, and at the appropriate time when recommendations are made to learn both of the factual analysis and recommendations.

The degree to which that [process] is open and transparent will create that sense of confidence about the recommendations, will give that sense of comfort to families who are grieving and hope to find in these recommendations some redemption for the loss that they have suffered.

Certainly the panel will be dealing with some very private and confidential matters – criminal records and mental health records. There will be people who will want to share ideas with you that they wouldn’t feel comfortable sharing in public but they’ll feel comfortable sharing in private, and so I know that there will be an awful lot of work that will be done in confidence, with discretion, because that is the appropriate way to gather information that you need.

But at key points along the way allowing the public to interact and understand the process will help.

And finally, to [issue your report] in a way that the public will understand what you have found and what you have recommended – [that] will really help this panel’s recommendations be implemented and accepted by Virginians in a very positive way.

I’ll conclude again just as I started, saying thanks for your willingness to serve.

The motto of Virginia Tech is a Latin motto and I can’t speak Latin so I am not going to pronounce it but the English translation of it is ‘That I May Serve.’   That is Virginia Tech’s motto, and that is the spirit in which this panel should carry its work going forward, and it’s a spirit that is very evident in who you have been up to this day. I look forward to working with you and from our standpoint in the Governor’s Office, doing anything we can to facilitate your work.  

Thank you very much.

 

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