Tuesday, April 17, 2007

Another news conference recently concluded at Virginia Tech. I didn't catch all of it, but I did see the part where a speaker (didn't get his name) said firmly that the response to the shootings and the decisions made by the university administration and police were correct and proper based on the information they had at the time.

This might be true. But it's way too soon to know that. In only 24 hours there's no way to review dispassionately the record of events, discussions and decisions. And it offends the objective mind that the same people who made the decisions have now definitively pronounced that their decisions are beyond criticism. An independent board of inquiry is more than justified here.

From the beginning, the public utterances of university President Charles Steger's and Police Chief Wendell Flinchum have been sorry spectacles. They have distanced themselves from the events, describing the day as if it had little to do with them personally. It's one thing to demonstrate command of facts, but they have displayed all the personal connection with the mass murders as if describing a close loss of a football game. Certainly, I have seen no evidence that they have even done much soul searching about their decisions and response plans. Frankly, ISTM that they hardly even care much.

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But hundreds of millions of dollars in lawsuits are sure to follow, anyway. Already, parents are calling for Steger and Finchum to get the boot. Myself, I hope they will have the decency to resign as a matter of principle. No matter how much legal and emotional distance the two men try to put between the killings and themselves, the deeds happened on their watch.