Seung-Hui Cho

Seung-Hui Cho (January 18, 1984 – April 16, 2007) was a university student who shot and killed 32 people, and wounded many more, in a shooting spree termed the "Virginia Tech massacre." The massacre took place on April 16, 2007 on the campus of the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech) in Blacksburg, Virginia, just four days before the eighth anniversary of the Columbine shooting. Cho committed suicide after law enforcement officers breached the doors of the academic building where he shot most of his victims, including faculty and students. Cho was a South Korean national with permanent resident status in the United States and a senior English major at Virginia Tech.

Around 7:15 a.m. Cho allegedly killed two students, Emily J. Hilscher and Ryan C. "Stack" Clark, on the fourth floor of West Ambler Johnston Hall, a high-rise co-educational dormitory. Although police had not stated positively at the time that Cho was the perpetrator of that shooting and the earlier one, forensic evidence confirmed that the same gun was used in both shooting incidents. Within the next two and a half hours, Cho returned to his room to re-arm himself and mailed a package containing pictures, digital video files and documents to NBC News. At approximately 9:45 a.m., Cho then crossed the campus to Norris Hall, a classroom building on the campus where, in a span of nine minutes, Cho shot dozens of people, killing 30 of them. As police breached the area of the building where Cho attacked the faculty and students, Cho committed suicide in Norris 211 with a gunshot to his temple. Cho's gunshot wound destroyed his face, frustrating the identification of his body for several hours. The police identified Cho by matching the fingerprints on the guns used in the shootings with immigration records. Before the shootings, Cho's only known connection to Norris Hall was as a student in the sociology class, Deviant Behavior, which met in a classroom on the second floor of the building.

Seung-Hui Cho immigrated to the United States at age 8 with both of his parents and his older sister in September 1992. Sun-Kyung Cho. Cho's family lived first in Detroit, Michigan before moving to Centreville, an unincorporated community located in western fairfax County, Virginia about 25 miles (40 km)
west of Washington, D.C. Cho was a permanent resident of the United States and a South Korean national. His parents are Christians and Cho himself was raised as a member of the religion.Reaction of Cho's familyCho's older sister, Sun-Kyung Cho, a 2004 graduate of Princeton University who works as a contractor for the United States Department of State, prepared a statement on her family's behalf to apologize publicly for her brother's actions, in addition to lending prayers to the victims and the families of the wounded and killed victims. "This is someone that I grew up with and loved. Now I feel like I didn't know this person," she said in the statement issued through a North Carolina attorney. "We never could have envisioned that he was capable of so much violence." Cho's grandfather stated, "My grandson Seung-Hui was very shy. I can't believe he did such a thing."
Review of Cho's medical records
During the investigation, Virginia investigators learned after a review of Cho's medical records that Cho never complied with the order for the mandated mental health treatment as an outpatient. The investigators also found that neither the court nor New River Valley Community Services Board exercised oversight of Cho's case to determine his compliance with the order for outpatient treatment.
As a result, Cho escaped compliance with the court order for mandatory mental health treatment as an outpatient, even though Virginia law required community services boards to "recommend a specific course of treatment and programs" for mental health patients and "monitor the person's compliance." As for the court, Virgina law also mandated that, if a person fails to comply with a court order to seek mental health treatment as an outpatient, that person can be brought back before the court "and if found still in crisis, can be committed to a psychiatric institution for up to 180 days." Cho was never summoned to court to explain why he had not complied with the December 14, 2005 order for mandatory mental health treatment as an outpatient.