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Gerald Massengill

Review panel appointees

Gerald Massengill: Retired superintendent of the Virginia State Police. Massengill led the agency during the Sept. 11, 2001, attack on the Pentagon and the 2002 sniper shootings in Northern Virginia. After his retirement, he served as interim director of the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries.

Tom Ridge: Former U.S. secretary of Homeland Security and governor of Pennsylvania. He was appointed by President Bush to direct federal homeland security efforts after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Gordon Davies: Served as director of the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia from 1977 to 1997.

Roger L. Depue: A former FBI official who served as administrator at the FBI National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime. Depue is the founder, past president and chief executive of the Academy Group Inc., a forensic behavioral sciences firm for consultation, research, training and investigation of aberrant and violent behavioral problems.

Aradhana A. "Bela" Sood: A psychiatrist and chairwoman of child and adolescent psychiatry at the Virginia Commonwealth University Medical Center. She has written extensively about adolescent depression and has expertise in the mental health system and court procedures for mental health patients.

Marcus L. Martin: A physician and assistant dean for the School of Medicine at the University of Virginia. He also is a professor in the department of emergency medicine.

Related

• Virginia Tech shooting victims

RICHMOND -- Gov. Tim Kaine said Thursday that an independent panel of experts will review all of the circumstances surrounding Monday's deadly shooting spree at Virginia Tech, looking at how university and law enforcement officials responded to the emergency and whether "warning signs" about the student gunman should have been evident.

"The primary purpose is to learn all we can and make recommendations to get better," Kaine said as he outlined the panel's work at a press conference. "The primary purpose isn't blame, it's not recrimination, it's not pointing fingers. The primary purpose is a looking-forward purpose."

Retired Virginia State Police Superintendent Gerald Massengill will be the group's chairman. The panel's eight members also will include former U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge, as well as experts in academia, law enforcement, mental health and medicine.

Kaine said he expects the panel to produce recommendations before colleges and universities start a new academic year in the fall. The findings could produce proposals for improving security at all Virginia colleges, the governor said.

Four state lawmakers have asked the Virginia Crime Commission to conduct a separate review and "recommend any legislative or administrative improvements that may appear necessary or helpful to prevent similar tragedies."

Dels. Dave Nutter, R-Christiansburg, and Jim Shuler, D-Blacksburg, and Sens. Brandon Bell, R-Roanoke County, and John Edwards, D-Roanoke, requested the review in a Wednesday letter to the chairman of the Crime Commission.

Nutter said the review could build upon a 2004 Crime Commission study of campus safety issues and complement the work of the governor's panel.

Kaine's review was requested by Tech President Charles Steger and the rector of the university's board of visitors. Kaine said university officials rightfully want to focus on supporting shooting victims and families and completing the spring semester.

"They don't need to have the additional burden of the after-review of these events distracting them from these core missions," Kaine said.

Kaine said the panel's work will cover three general subjects:

n Details of the two shootings, including what occurred in the two hours between a double homicide in a dormitory building and the killing of 30 people in Norris Hall.

n How university officials, law enforcement, emergency responders, hospitals and other agencies responded to the crisis.

n The behavioral problems of gunman Cho Seung-Hui and how he acquired the handguns used in the shootings.

"What was his interaction with the mental health system?" Kaine said. "What kind of treatment did he receive, or did he not receive? What were the warning signs, who was warned, what was done? What did he do to acquire these weapons? How did he learn to use the weapons? We need to find out everything we can about this young man."

Kaine and Massengill acknowledged that key questions will be whether Tech officials should have moved more quickly to notify students and employees about the first shooting incident and locked down the campus before the second episode occurred.

"I don't know how you can go through the comprehensive study that I envision without addressing those two issues with detail," Massengill said.

But Massengill also insisted that the group is "not trying to second-guess anyone with any decision or with any action that was taken."

Kaine said the panel's work will be "as public, as transparent as possible" but later acknowledged that many sensitive matters will have to be investigated in private.

Kaine announced six appointments to the panel Thursday and said he likely will announce two additional members soon.