Sam Dean | The Roanoke Times

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RICHMOND -- Gov. Tim Kaine on Thursday endorsed a state panel's critical report on the Virginia Tech shootings, saying it points to instances where "dots were not connected and signals were missed" by key officials and agencies.

The report bluntly assesses communications failures, ineffective support systems and a misunderstanding of privacy laws that hampered the university's ability to prevent the April 16 deaths of 33 students and professors, including the lone gunman. Kaine formally accepted the report at a news conference and called the panel's findings "objective and, in some cases, hard-hitting."

"What we have to do now is to challenge ourselves to study this report carefully, to make changes that will reduce the risk of future violence on campuses," Kaine said.

The report criticizes decisions made by Tech officials and law enforcement as the crisis unfolded and concludes that the university and the state mental health system failed to serve the needs of troubled student Seung-Hui Cho, who ended his murderous rampage by taking his own life.

Despite the flaws highlighted in the report, Kaine said none of the findings suggests that Tech President Charles Steger or other university officials should lose their jobs. Instead, Kaine said, "The focus of the report and my focus is to fix any problems identified so that we can avoid this happening in the future."

Some relatives of the shooting victims wanted the report to assign blame for a perceived failure to prevent Cho's shooting spree. Kaine said he "would certainly never suggest to anybody the way they should feel about these instances or about the report."

But, he added, "I believe in the days that follow, as we dig into the report and we dig into the recommendations, the quality of the work of the panel will be seen by all and the power of the recommendations will be recognized by all."

Kaine said he shared the panel's conclusion that Tech officials reacted too slowly on April 16 to alert the campus community of the 7:15 a.m. deaths of two students in the West Ambler Johnston dormitory. University leaders waited until 9:26 a.m. to send an alert about the shootings while police pursued a suspect other than Cho. About 9:40 a.m., Cho began firing shots in Norris Hall, killing 25 students, five professors and himself.

Kaine said prompt and accurate information about the first shooting should have been issued and that police should not have had to go through an administrative policy team to issue an alert.

"This was an emergency," Kaine said. "And there needed to be an ability to immediately give information to the people in the community and on that campus so they could take steps to address their own safety."

The panel concluded that Tech officials should have considered canceling classes and closing the campus after the initial shooting incident, but cautioned that "none of these measures would likely have averted a mass shooting altogether."

"We close for inclement weather," said panel chairman Gerald Massengill, a retired Virginia State Police superintendent. "Why couldn't we close for a serious public safety issue?"

In addition to assessing the handling of the shooting crisis, the report finds flaws with how school officials and the state's mental health system dealt with Cho's problems.

Cho entered Tech with a mental disorder that university officials knew nothing about, Kaine noted. The university and the state's mental health system compounded the problem by not ensuring that Cho received needed services and not adequately sharing information about behavior that raised concern.

"There was an intense awareness within Seung-Hui Cho's family, in his school system and counselors that he was a troubled young man," Kaine said.

The report said narrow interpretations of federal privacy laws limited the information that Tech officials and the university's counseling center shared about Cho's behavior.

Kaine said liability issues lead "lay people" to err on the side of caution and not share information. The report also recommends that privacy laws be changed to include provisions to insulate a person or organization from liability for sharing information when there is a "good faith" belief that the disclosure would "protect the health, safety, or welfare of the person involved or members of the general public."

"Think of the liability we just incurred," said panel member Gordon Davies, a former director of the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia. "I'd rather be sued for violating FERPA [the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act] than for causing 32 deaths ... "

Tech police could have contacted Cho's parents after they received complaints from female students about Cho's behavior in the fall of 2005, the report said.

Police also could have informed Cho's parents when he was taken to a mental health facility in December of that year. Cho was held overnight after a roommate reported that he might be suicidal. A special justice released him the next day with orders that he receive outpatient treatment.

Privacy laws also should not have prevented Cho's professors or residence hall staff from calling Cho's parents or reporting the troubling behavior they had witnessed, the report said.

The panel also concluded that the state's mental health laws are "flawed" and its services are "inadequate." State lawmakers are likely to pursue fixes for those shortcomings in the upcoming General Assembly session but warn that the initiatives will cost money.

"I think the General Assembly is going to take this issue very seriously and use this as a baseline for improving resources, improving communications and having monitoring and follow-up for people with problems, particularly where public safety is implicated," said state Sen. John Edwards, D-Roanoke, who could play a key role in carrying legislation stemming from the panel's report.

A House of Delegates committee already is examining mental health reforms based on issues arising from the Tech shootings. The chairman of the committee, Del. Phil Hamilton, R-Newport News, said the panel's report could create momentum for significant changes.

"These are some of the same issues that legislators have been talking about for years," Hamilton said.

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