Little anger expressed toward Va. Tech gunman

BLACKSBURG, Va. -- Kelly White and her two children visited the memorials on the Virginia Tech campus, leaving 32 pink tulips -- one for each victim in last week's massacre. They also placed a tulip on the stone for gunman Seung-Hui Cho.

"Forgiveness is part of being freed from anger," said White, a Blacksburg resident with relatives who attended the school. "I try to teach my children that God loves everyone."

Cho slaughtered 32 people in the worst shooting in modern U.S. history. But there has been surprisingly little outrage directed toward him around campus.

He is memorialized alongside his victims, and students preach forgiveness and talk about him like a troubled family member.

Campus leaders, experts and those touched by the tragedy say there are several reasons for the spirit of forgiveness. Many people are too overcome by grief to think about anything else. The fact that Cho killed himself provided enough retribution, some say. Others say the forgiveness is rooted in the strong Christian values of this area.

And there's also the loyalty to the "Hokie Nation." After a student organization placed the stone memorials in a semicircle last week on the main campus lawn, senior Katelynn L. Johnson added a 33rd stone for Cho. Johnson said she told almost no one about the stone because she feared a backlash.

She came forward after someone took it away, because she was outraged by the brief removal of the rock. She says she accepts all "fellow students, faculty and alumni as Hokies" no matter what problems they have.

"I believe his life had value no matter what he did," she said. "We lost 33 people."

Johnson said she has received hundreds of messages supporting placement of the stone for Cho. She only got a few negative responses, and only one from the Tech community.

After the first stone for Cho was removed, someone else came forward and placed a new one there. As of Thursday, the stone remained.

The appearance and disappearance of the stone reflects the community's struggle to come to terms with the massacre.

Virginia Tech has not included Cho in its memorial services for the 32 victims. A bell chimed 33 times Monday on the campus lawn, but university officials said the first chime was to start the ceremony. Officials also released 32 balloons into the air to remember Cho's victims.

The university so far has had no contact with Cho's family and does not plan to award him a posthumous degree as it will the students he killed, spokesman Mark Owczarski said.

The Rev. Scott Russell, an Episcopal minister at Virginia Tech, said he talked to some students who feel that they need to acknowledge Cho's death because the family deserves compassion. But he said many more students aren't able to forgive.

Brian Britt, a Virginia Tech professor of religious studies, said he was impressed that a 33rd stone had been added in the first place. "That's very hard for people to do," he said. "Some people will never do that."

The lack of visible anger also may mean that people have not reached that stage of grief yet, said Melissa Brymer, director of terrorism-disaster programs at the UCLA-Duke National Center for Child Traumatic Stress.

"It's so early on that people are worried about the injured getting healthy, keeping their spirits high, encouraging them," she said Thursday.

"Typically, after a few months you feel the anger," she said. "Just because it's not spoken doesn't mean it's not there. And there is anger because somebody has taken away their classmates."

Anne Lynn Goddard's son Colin was wounded during Cho's barrage on a French class, leading to a wide range of emotions among the family.

Colin is angry, referring to Cho only as "the shooter." So is Goddard's husband, Andy, who came face-to-face with a big-screen TV image of Cho pointing a gun at him last week when he walked into a hotel breakfast room.

Andy Goddard is so furious that Cho was able to get guns despite his mental problems that his wife won't be surprised if he channels his energy into gun-control lobbying.

"If there's any anger building up, it might be about the whole system -- that he slipped through the cracks," said Goddard, director of Richmond-based Christian Children's Foundation. "I'm also angry that he got the guns so readily, so easily."

Other mass murderers have drawn more anger. For instance, the killers at Columbine High School were vilified after their rampage. But at Virginia Tech, nestled in the Blue Ridge Mountains, religion may have guided the response.

Jeff Highfield, Virginia Tech campus director for Campus Crusade for Christ, said the students he's been working with are angry and frustrated, but "they're able to understand that he must have been hurting and confused in some way and made a horrible decision."

During group prayer, he said Campus Crusade members have not offered prayers for Cho, but have prayed often for his family "because they're still alive" and dealing with the pain of Cho's actions.

"It seems very natural for us as Christians," Highfield said. "It takes different times for different people, but I believe most of our students have forgiven."

The greatest evidence of the forgiveness may be the semicircle of stones on the campus lawn.

Britt said the stones are an important part of the grieving process. "In some ways those spontaneous and small gestures have a power even greater than some of the large monuments," he said.

The new stone for Cho is on the far left of the semicircle, unmarked and slightly apart. But it is adorned with mourners' tributes like those on the other memorials: flowers, candles, beads in maroon and orange and a flag.

In a letter that lay on Cho's stone Thursday, "Erica" said she wished she could have helped him:

"Even though my eyes are tired of crying;

"Even though my campus, my home will never be the same ...

"I forgive you.

"And I love you."