After Virginia Tech: Guns, Safety, and Healing in the Era of Mass Shootings by Thomas P. Kapsidelis

Author:Thomas P. Kapsidelis [Kapsidelis, Thomas P.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History & Theory, United States, Political Science, State & Local, South (AL; AR; FL; GA; KY; LA; MS; NC; SC; TN; VA; WV), History
ISBN: 9780813942230
Google: 9TN6DwAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 42506956
Publisher: University of Virginia Press
Published: 2019-04-16T00:00:00+00:00

On a cool autumn Friday in 2016 at Virginia Tech’s health center, students who wanted to get a jump on the day waited outside until the doors opened to the clinic near the football stadium. The complex houses the physical health clinic and the Cook Counseling Center, and is next to one of Tech’s recreational gyms. For those who buy into the concept of a healthy body and mind, the location seems to be a good one. On this morning there was a buzz of activity around the area—a soccer game was to be played later in the day, and the football team was due back after a come-from-behind victory over Pitt the night before.

The counseling center was the subject of intense scrutiny in the aftermath of the Tech killings. After Cho’s encounter with the state mental health system—his appearance in a commitment hearing that resulted in an order for involuntary outpatient treatment—he was triaged by Cook in 2005 but never returned for counseling. More than two years after the shootings came the disclosure that missing Cho records were taken home by the former Cook Counseling director when he left the job in 2006. Cho was triaged three times at Cook—twice by phone and once in person after his commitment hearing. “It was the policy of the Cook Counseling Center to allow patients to decide whether to make a follow-up appointment,” the governor’s report said. “None was ever scheduled by Cho. Because Cook Counseling Center had accepted Cho as a voluntary patient, no notice was given to the [Community Service Board], the court, St. Albans [psychiatric treatment center in Montgomery County] or Virginia Tech officials that Cho never returned to Cook Counseling Center.”

Reinhard saw the facts unfold in Richmond, where he remained commissioner until 2010. Shortly after leaving that job, Reinhard accepted an offer from Tech to be associate director for psychiatry at Cook. He also consults with a community service board in southwest Virginia, sees patients in a region that struggles with opiate problems, and serves on the same state board as Hilscher. Returning to this part of Virginia was a homecoming for Reinhard, who was head of the state behavioral health system’s nearby Catawba Hospital before taking the job of commissioner.

Reinhard said he senses the Tech community exhibits more caring and awareness, and that mental health providers are erring on the side of safety given the history of how so many agencies and people had contacts with Cho, yet were unable to stop him from going down the most destructive path. The establishment of a threat assessment team, required at all Virginia public colleges and universities after the shootings, has, in Reinhard’s view, been handled sensitively at Tech. In 2013, after the Newtown shootings, Virginia became the first state to require threat assessment teams within local school divisions.

Gene Deisinger, the threat assessment expert and former Virginia Tech deputy police chief, said a collaborative group that included connected members of the campus community—“boundary spanners”—and police would have been a mechanism for recognizing the depth of Cho’s troubles.

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