Virginia Tech Jury Finds School Negligent in 2007 Shootings
University Hit With 3rd Wrongful Death Verdict Over Senug-Hui Cho's Deadly Rampage
On Wednesday, a jury declared that Virginia Tech responded negligently to actions leading up to the shocking and deadly shooting massacre that occurred on its Blacksburg campus in spring 2007.
In the wrongful death civil suit brought forth by parents of two of the victims who died in the massacre, jurors found that Virigina Tech had failed to properly warn students about the dangers on campus after gunman Senug-Hui Cho carried out two shootings in a school dorm room.
The university says that they believed the dorm incident was isolated, and could have never predicted the massacre inside a campus classroom that would follow.
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"The heinous crimes committed by Seng-Hui Cho were an unprecedented act of violence that no one could have forseen," university spokesman Mark Owczarski said in a statement.
Wednesday's verdict is the third wrongful death verdict against the university since the 2007 shooting spree.
"The university's contention has been all along, to quote president (Charles) Steger 'We did everything we could do,'' attorney for the victim's parents Robert T. Hall told reporters. "Obviously the jury didn't buy that."
Wednesday's verdict will not likely be the last legal word, as the state is giving signals that it plans on appealing the decision.
"The uncontradicted evidence presented at trial established that it was a unanimous decision of three law enforcement agencies that the mass shooting was simply not foreseeable," the attorney general's office said in a statement following the announcement of the verdict.
"Only with hindsight can one conclude that Cho's unprecedented acts were foreseeable."
The Virginia Tech shooting took place on April 16, 2007. The massacre left 32 dead and wounded 25 others. It was the deadliest shooting incident by a single gunman in U.S. history and was an unprecedented attack in an institution of higher education.
