I find it inconceivable the reaction Virginia Tech gave towards the morning shootings. Two people were killed in a dorm room at 7 15 AM, but the school, basically, did nothing. The police were called to investigate, but from what I've read that's about it. They sent out an all school email urging students to exercise caution because of a shooting, but they did this two and a half hours later. The email was sent out close to 10 00 AM. Why they didn't shut down classes, why they didn't make an immediate warning, a more urgent warning, a louder warning, is beyond me. I don't care if the school thought that the shooting was an isolated incident, or that they had no reason to believe there would be a second round of shootings. Two students shot and killed in a dorm room is a tragedy, regardless of the size of the school or the assumptions of the killers intentions. And yes, I realize it's easy to say this only after knowing that a few hours after the first two deaths could come thirty-one more, but I don't think I'm being unreasonable when I say that the response was a joke.
But what I've been most interested in aren't the facts, or the chain of events, or the motives of the killer. It's been the victims.
I think something that's been striking about the timing of these killings is that they happened in the Internet age, where information is so accessible. With websites like MySpace or Facebook, it's easy to look people up, and those who participate in those kinds of sites know that on them you create a public identity for yourself--a superficial one, but an identity nonetheless. You can post your favorite music, your favorite movies, meaningful quotes, you have links to your friends. You can post photographs of whatever you want. Even the photograph you choose to represent yourself carries a huge amount of weight, and are often carefully chosen, because it says something about you: your sense of humor, your artistic sensibilities etc. Indeed, these types of components gradually mold an entire person, to the extent that a total stranger can look at your MySpace page and begin to acquire a sense of you, begin to feel they know you.
Yesterday I was looking at some of the victims MySpace pages, and I felt the sensation I described earlier. Through pictures, through comment posts, this person on my page isn't a stranger anymore. I see snapshots of their lives, comments from their friends, snippets of their favorite songs. And so I'm not mourning the loss of a stranger, but more of a pseudo-friend, an acquaintance at the very least.
One reading that got me the most was on a page for a victim named Ross Alameddine. Like any myspace page, you can post comments on thier homepage, and anyone can read them. Since his death friends have been posting on his page with praises, memories, and goodbyes. But people were posting there before he died, just regular posts about the regular grind.
" ross me dear,
i posted a pic for you haha."
"Happy Birthday LoveDove.
<333" class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_13">Rinda" There was one girl, Leah Nicole, who posted on his page a lot. I can only imagine that she was a close friend of Ross's. She was the last one to write on Ross's page before he was killed. It said the following: "kindly direct your web browser to my myface page and listen to my song, ok? it's tight." So I clicked her page. More noticeable than the song was the huge picture at the top of the page of Ross looking knowlingly in to the camera, next to a poster with a James Dean quote reading "the only greatness for a man is immortality." Scrolling down the page shows wall posts. They go in chronological order, with the most recent posts at the top of the page. There have been a lot since April 16th, and the type of post evolves over the two days. The most recent ones read something like "i'm so glad you're okay!" A few of the early posts are from right after the shooting, from friends who live out of town. "hey girl. are you ok? i heard what happened at tech. i just wanted to make sure you were all right. love you, hun! <3 class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_23">i'm so glad you're okay" "to, have you heard from anybody else" to, and this is where almost everyone has been identital "I am so sorry to hear about ross." " I'm soo sorry to hear about Ross Leah" " i heard . . . im really sorry . . . i love you pamburger" "Hey, I'm really sorry to hear about you're friend. I am glad you're okay though. Hope everything's going alright." One girl named Pam posted a comment on Leah's wall soon after the shooting, when there was little information, saying the following: "I'm so glad your okay, i hope ross is okay though, ill pray, i love you" I decided to click Pam's myspace link, to see what Leah had to say. When the webpage opens and I scroll down her page I can tell that she doesn't go to Virginia Tech. No one mentions anything about the shootings, whereas on VT myspace's the posts are filled with messages of concern. One person did say something though. Leah wrote the following: Leah Nicole
Apr 16 2007 3:05P
I'm alive, I'm alive! *jumps up and down* I hadn't gone to campus yet, so I was safe in my apartment all day..
But my best friend Ross was in Norris when it happened and no one has heard from him since.. so PLEASE pray for him
I went back to Ross's myspace page, and saw that Leah was both the last person to post on his wall before his death, and the first person after his death. Her last post was something trivial, asking him to check out a song on her website. But i guess anything written about a person before his unexpected death would be trivial. It's easy, in retrospect, to think of something passionate and profound about someone, something you'd want them to keep with them before they died. But this experience has made me think a lot about my friends, and made me realize that I haven't told any of my friends something I'd be satisfied with if i knew they were going to die tomorrow. I ask anyone to do the same thing. Try to cite a single friend that you've said something nice enough for it to be worthy of the last thing you said to them.
Leah's last comment before Ross's death was trivial, a request to check out some music. Her first comment after his death was different, and she wrote:
Apr 16 2007 8:44P
Rossmo, I love you with all my heart. My one regret is that I never actually told you that.
Anyway, I'm done writing for today, but believe me, I'm not done writing about this. I know i haven't written in two months, so I'm not even sure if I even have an audience at this point, but here it is. And if you're interested, here are two links. The first is to Ross's Myspace page, and the second is to a wonderful New York Times feature about the victims.
http://www.myspace.com/kazinkilu
http://www.nytimes.com/ref/us/20070418_VICTIMS_GRAPHIC.html
