The Morning of the 17th
By the next morning, President Steger’s narrative account had tightened considerably. During a 6:00 a.m. interview with John Roberts, President Steger again was asked, “One of the big points of controversy here, and this comes from every student at Virginia Tech that I have talked to is, why was there a two hour and 10 minute lag between the time that there was the shooting at West AJ at 7:15 and the time that the e-mail went out at 9:26 notifying students that something had happened?"[41] This afforded President Steger yet another opportunity of repetition:
[W]hen the event happened at AJ, the dormitory was immediately closed down. It was surrounded by security guards. The streets were cordoned off and the students in the building were notified of what was going on. We also had to find witnesses because we didn’t know what had happened. The individuals who were [shot] were sent to the hospital and it was based on the interrogation of the witnesses that we think there was another person involved. And so we wanted to be sure we could gather as much accurate information before taking steps. But, it was—the situation was characterized as being confined to that dormitory room. We thought we had it under control. And I don’t think anyone could have predicted that another event was going to take place two hours later.[42]
At 7:00a.m. President Steger was interviewed by NBC’s Matt Lauer, who essentially asked the same question: You are still “facing some very difficult questions from . . . students and from parents and from law enforcement people . . . who are saying, ‘We had a shooting at 7:15 . . . and yet an e-mail didn’t go out warning student to be even cautious until two hours later.’"[43] Steger replied in now characteristic fashion: “Well, the incident, as it was reported by our security people, was believed to be confined to that one room, an incident between two individuals. When that happened, we immediately closed down that dormitory, surrounded it with security."[44] The remainder of this brief interview forces this issue:
LAUER: But you didn’t find a shooter at that time. . . . And so you had to assume that he was at large. . . .
MR.STEGER: Well, we had to first see whether or not there was a murder weapon, and whether or not it was a murder/suicide. And then we had to track down witnesses to see if anybody saw anything else, and that’s what took some time.
LAUER: I think what I’ve been hearing, talking to students . . . and people over the last 20 hours of so . . . is why not assume the worst case scenario? Why not err on the side of caution and say that “We’ve got someone who’s taken either one or two’—if it’s murder/suicide, end of story . . . but if it’s someone who’s taken two lives . . . the game has changed, and that person now has nothing to lose.
MR. STEGER: Well, you have to appreciate that, of our 26,000 students, only 9,000 live on campus. So at that time of the morning, we’ve got about 15—16,000 people in transit, you got another 7,000 employees and two or 3,000 visitors on the campus. And so these people are going to be all over campus. So we felt . . . letting them get into the classroom and then closing down the classrooms, which is what we did, was the best way. . . .[45]
However, there was an epideictic moment to the interview, when President Steger said: “[W]e love our students, and we think the community that we built here is a very rich one that is very caring and we’re interdependent and we’re going to do everything we can to help our students make their way through this very difficult process. Lauer: And to their parents. . . . MR. STEGER: We cannot describe . . . the sorrow they must feel. It is—words is—simply can’t capture it."[46]
Click here for another epideictic moment.
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