BLACKSBURG (Virginia), April 19: Three days after the United States’ deadliest school shootings, Americans were shocked by a video posted mid-massacre by student Cho Seung-Hui, casting himself as a long-suffering martyr forced to gun down more than 30 people.
“You have blood on your hands,” the black-clad South Korean gunman ranted in one of several video files sent to NBC News in New York on the morning of his deadly rampage through the classrooms of Virginia Tech University.
The package, delivered on Wednesday, included writings and photographs of Cho wielding the guns that were used in the killings as well as other weapons.
The multimedia manifesto from beyond the grave was sure to intensify questions of how a student who stalked female schoolmates and was briefly committed to a mental hospital could remain at large and easily buy guns for his murder spree.
“Thanks to you I die like Jesus Christ, to inspire generations of the weak and the defenceless people,” he said in a rant in which he poured out his anger and hatred for the wealthy.
“Do you know what it feels like to be humiliated and be impaled on a cross and left to bleed to death for your amusement? You have never felt a single ounce of pain your whole life,” he said.
Virginia police superintendent Steve Flaherty told reporters the message “may be a very new critical component of this investigation” and was being analyzed.
The package also contained photographs of Cho, shaven-headed and wearing black gloves, wielding guns, knives and a hammer.
The 9:01 am postmark on the package indicated that the 23-year-old mailed the carefully prepared package in the time between two shooting incidents on campus. It contained 27 video files, an 1,800-word written manifesto and 43 photographs.
“You had a hundred billion chances and ways to have avoided today,” Cho said in one of videos, accompanied by numerous still shots of him staring fiercely at the camera and wielding two handguns.
“But you decided to spill my blood. You forced me into a corner and gave me only one option. The decision was yours. Now you have blood on your hands that will never wash off,” he said.
The postmark shows the package was mailed from a post office in Blacksburg, this southwest Virginia town where Virginia Tech is located.
The English major also made references to other school murderers: Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, who killed 12 students and a teacher before shooting themselves dead at Columbine High School, Colorado on April 20, 1999.
The network said Cho sent the package after killing two students in a campus dormitory. Police have yet to confirm Cho was behind the dormitory killings although they have said one of his guns was used.
The dormitory shooting occurred around 7:15 am, according to police. The second shooting, in which 30 people died and Cho committed suicide, occurred a little more than two hours later.
US media said authorities were also looking into the meaning of the name “Ishmael Ax,” written on the package. The name was also reported to have been written on his arm when he was found dead.
The manifesto surfaced several hours after police revealed that Cho had been briefly institutionalized in December 2005.
Virginia Tech police chief Wendell Flinchum said Cho was committed to a mental health facility through a court order following a stalking incident.
A Virginia district court in 2005 declared that Cho was mentally ill and “an imminent danger to self or others as a result of mental illness,” CNN television reported, citing the court order.
Flinchum did not say how long he stayed at the hospital, but ABC News obtained a copy of the detention order and documents indicating that he was released the following day.—AFP
