LawFuel.com – Important issues are going to arise in the killing room case involving the Virginia Tech Killing Room lawsuit.
The Virginia Tech officials operated in an appropriate manner, defense attorneys argued in their opening statements Tuesday, in their defense of actions the morning of April 16, 2007 prior to Seung-Hui Cho shooting and killing 30 people, and then himself.
Commonwealth attorneys said the initial investigation into the dorm room killing at West Ambler Johnston Hall lead police to believe the crime was a domestic case, with specifically targeted victims.
Defense attorneys argued it’s easy to look back and point out errors and mistakes, but at the time police had no evidence that pointed to the gunman, Seung-Hui Cho, coming back to campus and killing 30 more people at random.
Among the claims brought by the plaintiff lawyers are that Virginia Tech misled the public after the shootings. On the evening of April 16th, Virginia Tech President Charles Steger read a timeline of events at a news conference. The timeline was prepared by university vice-president Larry Hincker. Lawyers say the timeline had a number of inaccuracies: It states that police identified a person of interest at 7:30 a.m. even though records show that did not happen until 8:16. It also referred to early discussion of a “homicide investigation” even though the warning that went out to the university described only a “shooting incident.”
