Matt Gentry | The Roanoke Times

Virginia Tech Police Chief Wendell Flinchum watches as an officer unlocks the fence surrounding Norris Hall as members of the governor's panel approach to tour the building Monday.

Related

• Public offers input to Tech panel

Message board

• Discuss the panel's investigation and the proposals it may make

Meeting highlights

• The Morva Factor: Tech officials said their decisions April 16 were influenced by last August's events when it was feared that escaped prisoner William Morva might be on campus. President Charles Steger said people were running out of Squires Student Center because of erroneous reports that Morva was inside, just as SWAT team members were running into the building. Although no one was hurt, the results could have been tragic, Steger said.
• Seeking mental health records: The panel investigating the shootings wants access to Seung-Hui Cho's mental health records but privacy rights prevent release of most records. Tom Ridge, the former U.S. Homeland Security chief, said he understands the panel should do what it can to get Cho's records.
• Ammunition recovered: Seung-Hui Cho had fired less than half of his ammunition when he took his own life. State police said that in addition to 174 fired rounds of ammunition found inside Norris Hall, 203 live rounds were recovered.
• What's next: The panel meets June 11 in Northern Virginia and July 18 in Charlottesville.

Special section

• Complete coverage of the shootings

BLACKSBURG -- Seung-Hui Cho still had more than 200 rounds of unspent ammunition at his disposal when he ended his April 16 shooting rampage on the Virginia Tech campus by taking his own life, authorities said Monday.

A gubernatorial panel investigating the shootings learned that Cho fired less than half the ammunition he had taken into Norris Hall, an academic building where 30 students and faculty were shot to death.

By the end of the panel's public meeting on the Tech campus, the group had been given a detailed timeline of the shooting deaths of two students in West Ambler Johnston Hall and the shootings 2 ¹₂ hours later in Norris Hall.

They also heard Tech President Charles Steger and other university officials defend their decision to keep the campus open after the first shootings, saying that nothing about the two deaths in a dormitory suggested that a much larger crisis would unfold later in the morning.

"It's a judgment call, but we believe we did the right thing," Steger told the panel.

Monday's meeting could go a long way toward helping the panel with its findings and its recommendations to Gov. Tim Kaine, who appointed the eight-member group last month. In addition to getting public and private briefings from police, members of the panel toured the two buildings where the shootings occurred.

However, they also learned of legal barriers that could keep them from getting information about Cho's court-ordered mental health treatment.

Kaine expects preliminary recommendations from the panel in August.

University administrators, police, rescue workers and a hospital administrator walked the panel through a detailed chronology of the events of April 16. The briefings included accounts of Cho's movements throughout the morning, and of the firepower that the troubled student still had when police found him dead in Norris Hall.

Virginia State Police Superintendent Steve Flaherty said Cho methodically fired at least 174 rounds from two semiautomatic handguns in Norris and apparently killed himself as police entered the building. Police recovered 203 live rounds, including two loaded 9mm magazines containing 15 rounds each. Cho also had two knives and a claw hammer in his backpack, Flaherty said.

Police also revealed new details about Cho's whereabouts that morning. Computer records indicate he accessed his e-mail account at 7:25 a.m., five minutes after the first call was made to Tech police about someone falling out of a loft bed in West Ambler Johnston. Swipe card records indicate Cho entered Harper Hall, his residence hall, at 7:17 a.m.

A witness also told police that Cho was near the Duck Pond between 8:10 and 8:20 a.m. Police searched that area for evidence in the days after the shooting but did not reveal why at the time.

Flaherty and Tech Police Chief Wendell Flinchum also accompanied the panel on tours of the two campus buildings. The panel's chairman, Gerald Massengill, said the tour provided little new information about the shootings. But seeing the buildings and hearing the accounts of law enforcement officers had an impact, he said.

"I'm not sure there are words to describe what we've seen this morning," said Massengill, a retired state police superintendent. "I've seen and heard a lot in my career, but this is almost undescribable."

Despite objections from reporters, the building tours and an earlier two-hour briefing with law enforcement authorities were closed to the public. Massengill said the briefing was closed because it included a discussion of records protected under the Freedom of Information Act. University administrators said they decided to restrict access to the buildings out of respect for the families of the shooting victims.

"We will continue to restrict access until the families who indicate a desire to do so have had an opportunity to visit the building," Steger said, referring to Norris Hall.

Steger and other Tech officials told the panel that an incident last August involving a gunman near campus affected their decisions on April 16.

Steger said erroneous reports about the movements of escaped prisoner William Morva created panic on the Tech campus on the first day of classes in August. They wanted to avoid a similar scenario after learning of the dormitory shootings early the morning of April 16.

Tech officials said it would have been difficult to close the campus with thousands of students and employees already en route. Officials also believed police had identified a suspect in the first shooting incident, but authorities later learned the person was not involved.

The university sent out a campuswide e-mail about the first shooting at 9:26 a.m., urging students and employees to be cautious.

Kaine initially had asked the panel to learn whatever it could about mental health treatment Cho may have received under a 2005 court order, but panel members learned Monday that they may encounter legal roadblocks in pursuit of that information.

Kay Heidbreder, Tech's legal counsel, said federal laws prohibit the university from sharing records without a court order or release. State law limits the university's ability to share scholastic records, she said.

Privacy laws also barred university officials and police from learning what, if any, mental health treatment Cho received, Heidbreder said.

Those barriers could make it difficult for the panel to determine whether Cho fell through the cracks of a mental health system that many consider overburdened and underfunded.

Under questioning from panel member Diane Strickland, a former Roanoke County circuit court judge, Heidbreder said the university could not even tell the panel whether its counseling center dealt with Cho.

Strickland suggested after the meeting that the panel may need approval from the executor of Cho's estate to get the information.

"It's truly difficult to know right now," she said.

mike.sluss@roanoke.com (804) 697-1585

greg.esposito@roanoke.com (540) 381-1675