I agree with you wholeheartedly, CAS.
We all have the potential to become enveloped in a sinister pure evil.
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http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18169776/
Ex-classmates say gunman was bullied
"BLACKSBURG, Va. - Long before he killed 32 people in the worst mass shooting in U.S. history, Seung-Hui Cho was bullied by fellow high school students who mocked his shyness and the strange way he talked, former classmates said.
Cho, 23, a senior English major at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg, killed 32 people in two attacks before taking his own life Monday. He sent a large multi-media package outlining his grievances against religion and the wealthy to NBC News, but police said Thursday that the material added little to their investigation.
The text, photographs and video in the package bristle with hatred toward unspecified people whom Cho, a South Korean immigrant, accused of having wronged him, adding to a portrait of a solitary man who rarely, if ever, managed normal social interactions.
Chris Davids, a Virginia Tech student who graduated with Cho from Westfield High School in Chantilly, Va., in 2003, recalled that Cho almost never opened his mouth and would ignore attempts to strike up a conversation.
Once, in an English class, the teacher had the students read aloud and, when it was Cho’s turn, he just looked down in silence, Davids recalled in an interview with The Associated Press.
Finally, after the teacher threatened to give him a failing grade for participation, Cho started to read in a strange, deep voice that sounded “like he had something in his mouth,” Davids said.
“As soon as he started reading, the whole class started laughing and pointing and saying, ‘Go back to China,’” Davids said.
Among Cho’s victims were Reema Samaha and Erin Peterson, who both graduated from Westfield High School last year. Police said it was not clear whether Cho singled them out.
‘The question mark kid’
Virginia Tech student Alison Heck said a suitemate of hers on campus found a mysterious question mark scrawled on the dry erase board on her door. The young woman went to the same high school as Cho, according to her Facebook page.
Cho once scrawled a question mark on the sign-in sheet on the first day of a literature class, and other students came to know him as “the question mark kid.”
“I don’t know if she knew that it was him for sure,” Heck said. “I do remember that that fall that she was being stalked and she had mentioned the question mark. And there was a question mark on her door.”
Heck added: “She just let us know about it just in case there was a strange person walking around our suite.”
The young woman could not immediately be located for comment, via e-mail or telephone.
The focus Thursday slowly began turning away from the multimedia package Cho sent to NBC News on Monday after Col. Steven Flaherty, superintendent of the Virginia State Police, said the material added little to the investigation.
After killing two people in a Virginia Tech dormitory — but before he slaughtered 30 more in a classroom building, Cho mailed NBC News the long, profanity-laced diatribe along with dozens of photographs and videos, boasting: “When the time came, I did it. I had to.”
“While there was some marginal value to the package we received, the fact of the matter is ... the package merely confirms what we already knew,” Flaherty said in a brief statement Thursday.
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Just stepping onto the school bus to go to school took a lot of courage.
I would pray to God everyday while I walked to the bus stop "Please let me get through this day...please don't let them hurt me..."
He never answered my prayers, but instead, I had to pull through it on my own.
I do not pray anymore.
In a sad way, I can relate to a lot of the killers - though I too, do not condone their actions. However, having to endure continual humiliation, racism, bullying...by people...groups of people for years...made me realize I had a side of me that I never before knew.
I recall one incident where my mom brought me out to eat at a restaurant.
I couldn't eat because I was shaking too much; I just wanted to explode.
I hated my classmates with a passion.
I wanted to kill them all. I wanted to kill them and become a "tragic hero" in the sense that I wanted to show the world, how a nice, innocent, straight-A student collapsed in a world so cruel. Maybe then, schools and parents would take notice and better educate their children on how to treat others.
I could expand, but I don't think I want to at this point.
CAS, you say "I just hope it won't be one of us on the news because of a similar crime someday...".
I hope so too.
But should anyone reach such a point where they desire or plan on committing such terrible crimes; stop and get help.
It was that little candle of hope that I had burning within me that caused me to stop myself. How close was I? I would rather not know.
But to anyone...do not ever forget that we are human. They are human.
There is a light at the end of the tunnel even though you may not be able to see it right now.
