2007 Virginia Tech shooting / Seung-Hui Cho

[LACUNA]

Virginia Tech will always be the most interesting school shooting to me. Part of it is just how inscrutable some of its presentation was. He left a long, rambling manifesto, both text and video, and yet his motive is basically inscrutable because he couched it in such elaborate, extravagant and obscure terminology (e.g. I am Ax Ishmael. I am the Anti-Terrorist of America). What is Ax Ishmael supposed to mean? The overarching theme is revenge on society but whatever he specifically wants revenge for is unclear - rape, maybe? Literal or figurative?

Manifesto


Photos


Links:
The text manifesto

Richard McBeef, his play

Mr. Brownstone, his other play

 

[sandman]

Pages from his manifesto released by NBC News:



Screenshots of videos released by NBC News:

 

[sandman]

Presentation from the Virginia Dept. of Forensic Science with forensic photos. (download)

 

[sandman]

Presentation from the Virginia Dept. of Forensic Science with forensic photos. (download)

 

[Sabrina Kilic]

This guy saw himself as a martyr and thought that via his attack he would revenge all bullied people.. yes.. revenge bullied people by killing random.

Cho was clearly insane and delirious, in my opinion theres no reason to try to analyze his manifesto, is just ramblings and he's not the only one, I saw not only killer text but randoms says schizo stuff with fancy words that end in nothing.

 

[LACUNA]

This guy saw himself as a martyr and thought that via his attack he would revenge all bullied people.. yes.. revenge bullied people by killing random.

Cho was clearly insane and delirious, in my opinion theres no reason to try to analyze his manifesto, is just ramblings and he's not the only one, I saw not only killer text but randoms says schizo stuff with fancy words that end in nothing.

I don't agree. He's saying concrete things, just using obtuse and strange phrasing. I don't think he was insane in any way that makes him not culpable or incoherent.