The governor of the southeastern U.S. state of Virginia says information about the mental health of the man who killed himself and 32 other people at Virginia Tech University was never given to school officials who could have helped him.
Governor Tim Kaine Thursday said a report investigating the shootings on April 16 showed that many people had dealings with Seung-Hui Cho indicating he was troubled, but the information was not noted in his school record. Kaine also said the state mental health system failed to make sure Cho attended court-ordered treatment after an earlier incident.
The report, released Thursday, criticizes campus security measures. It says a campus-wide lockdown would not have prevented the killings, but could have allowed students and faculty to better protect themselves. It also says two hours went by before police sent out a campus-wide alert about the first two shootings.
An eight-member independent panel, appointed by the governor, spent four months investigating the shooting rampage.
The report says Cho showed signs of a mental disorder as far back as his childhood, and received treatment in high school. He expressed a fascination with the 1999 shootings at Columbine High School in the western U.S. state of Colorado, where two students opened fire and killed 12 other students and a teacher.
Some information for this report was provided by AP and Reuters.
