By Katherine Ramsland

Lucinda Roy, a co-director of creative writing at Virginia Tech who tutored Cho, noticed his inability to connect. "He was so distant and so lonely," she said to hosts on Good Morning America. "It was almost like talking to a hole, as though he wasn't there most of the time."

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There's little doubt that he was depressed, so the diagnosis was not mistaken; it just didn't include enough information to be complete.  Perhaps the information wasn't there at the time.  Whatever the case, Cho obviously nursed his fantasy with images of hate.  The potential mass murderer, absorbed in depression, will seek to feel more energy and less pain.  If the fantasy of contempt-inspired killing achieves this, based on a developing paranoia, he'll spend more time with it, refining the details.  Momentum thus builds and, at a certain critical point, it becomes impervious to intervention.   

 

Those people who made attempts in 2005 to get him some help had an inkling that some stopgap measure was needed, but they probably did not fully comprehend the burgeoning turmoil of the disorder that finally erupted in the deaths of 32 people.

Perhaps it's time for schools across the country to consider creating teams of experts who can review "problem" students and make decisions about tracking them.  Privacy issues have been modified in prior incidents involving violence, resulting in "duty to warn" laws.  Mental illness that reveals the potential for violence might be another area that should be allowed to be tracked, even if the person resists it.  The safety of other individuals and of the community is at stake.

 

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by Katherine Ramsland