Unfortunately, the horrific shooting rampage at Virginia Tech (240 miles from D.C.), which is now being described as the deadliest in U.S. history may does have a brown angle, if only to further a reckless agenda. The death toll is up to 32 33; at least 22 28 people are injured. Tipster Hema emailed us about Debbie Schlussel, a blogger who didn’t waste any time before irresponsibly blaming “Pakis” for the tragedy (I have quoted most of it so you don’t have to go to the site– it doesn’t deserve the traffic):
Who is the “Asian” Mass Murderer at Virginia Tech?
Here’s what we know about the murderer of at least 32 students and maimer of at least 28 more at Virginia Tech, today:
* The murderer has been identified by law enforcement and media reports as “a young Asian male.”
* The Virginia Tech campus has a very large Muslim community, many of which are from Pakistan (per terrorism investigator Bill Warner).
* Pakis are considered “Asian.”
snip
If I were Asian, I’d be legitimately upset with this broad generalization of the mass murderer’s identity.
Why am I speculating that the “Asian” gunman is a Pakistani Muslim? Because law enforcement and the media strangely won’t tell us more specifically who the gunman is. Why?
And the ass-covering finale:
Even if it does not turn out that the shooter is Muslim, this is a demonstration to Muslim jihadists all over that it is extremely easy to shoot and kill multiple American college students.
So far, there is no indication that she might be right. I pray no one decides to indulge their inner-vigilante after reading her hate-spew. Enough people have been hurt by this nightmare.
May the memory of those students whose lives were stolen be eternal. This is just heart-breaking. I’ll update this story as it develops…
::
UPDATE 8: Minal Panchal is confirmed among the lost (Thanks, brown_fob).
Information about Minal’s death came in late because no immediate family member was present on campus.I remember her life here.
UPDATE 7: Information about the gunman (Thanks, Desishiksa):
Cho Seung Hui was a South Korean native who immigrated to this country as a child, officials said. His lifeless body was found in Norris Hall, a classroom building, among those of several other slain students, Virginia state police superintendent Col. Steve Flaherty said. Cho, a senior, had apparently taken his own life. Cho graduated in 2003 from Westfield High School in Fairfax…
Cho, described by fellow students a loner, cleared a federal criminal background check at the time his green card was renewed in 2003, as did his family, a U.S. immigration official said. [WaPo]
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p>UPDATE 6: Regarding VoiceInTheHead’s comment:
It has also been reported that an Indian student, Minal Panchal, is missing after the shootout. [DNA]
UPDATE 5: A desi Professor is among the lost (Thanks, Murugan):
Reports have it that an Indian-origin professor is among those killed in the campus massacre.
Professor G V Loganathan of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering was teaching in a class in the Norris Hall – one of the crime scenes – when the gunman went on rampage. [IBN]Abhi remembers him here.
UPDATE 4: In a move which shocks absolutely no one, the blogger who inspired our post uses the latest information in this case (Chinese, not “Paki”) to rail against furriners coming to America for college (Thanks again, Hema):
So, the perpetrator of the Virginia Tech massacre is a Chinese national here on a student visa. And today, this alien did “the job that Americans just won’t do.”
Remember that the next time you hear President Bush and Condi Clueless waxing lyrical about how we need more foreign students in America. We do not. Remember the Mana Saleh Almanajam and Shaker Mohsen Alsidran, two Saudi students in Tampa, last year, who hijacked a school bus full of kids while wearing trench coats in 90-plus degree weather?
…And remember: Just because this attacker was not Muslim, doesn’t mean there aren’t plenty of potential and hopeful ones among the thousands Muslim nations are sending here to “study” under Saudi King Abdullah’s scholarships.[pure crap]See? This is a teaching opportunity, to remind us of how evil Muslims are.
UPDATE 3: Campus police thought it was an “isolated incident”; the email warning they sent was probably too little, too late.
“You can second guess all day. We acted on the best information we had.”
At 9:29 a.m., the university sent an e-mail warning students that a gunman was on the loose and to stay indoors. At about that time, a shooter opened fire at the engineering school’s Norris Hall, killing 30 people. Several students leapt to safety from upper stories, and the gunman’s body was later found at the building, Flinchum said. [Bloomberg]
UPDATE 2: CircusInJungle points us to Wiki, which first said the shooter was “James Jay Kim”. The article has been updated, no longer reflects that.
UPDATE 1: Amardeep provides a link where an eye-witness IDs the suspect as “Asian”; the shooter may have been looking for his girlfriend.
*I have amended the title (was Tragedy at Virginia Tech; Quick, Blame Pakis) and original content of this post because it seemed like the appropriate thing to do; several of Schlussel’s quotes have been removed because they serve no further purpose here. Additionally, updates are now in reverse-chronological order, to facilitate information dissemination.
That’s quite a curiously written article that muralimannered linked to.
Several dozen?
Yeah, throw in an editorial, why don’t you.
Complex state of mind?
Thanks. And good — I’ve been to too many places that don’t actually check things out before calling people out…
I can only hope some nutbag pulls a gun near my loved ones or my home. Im packin always like the second provides. Blame the college for not backing the second amendment.Blame the deaths on the murderer. He like the 911 terrorist entered our country with a student visa. If the students were allowed to carry firearms the death toll would be lower. Bottom line left or right, you arguing fools.
I think I finally just understood what you wrote– and I didn’t think it possible, but now I’m more horrified. Could they have prevented some of…? Have mercy. 🙁
the article is lacking a great deal of detail but linked to it as a way to substantiate the identity of the missing grad student.
Some bloggers are already trying to turn this into a “if they had concealed carry permits this would’ve been real different” story.
Two pieces of information.
The Indian Student Association at VT says “As of now we don’t have any news of any Indian student being part of causalities”.
The Indian Express (reporting from NY) says two Indians are missing. One professor and one student. They have not named anyone.
yep, he sure didn’t die as corroborated by many sources…
and this ain’t faux news either.
First of all any person who can reload and systematically fire round after round, hitting targets consistently and reloading, has military type weapons proficiency. Theres more here than most people who have never fired a weapon will ever know. This type of auto kill comes from actually killing before and I dont mean on a playstation 3 or x-box. But thats just my opinion as a disabled veteran.
I’m with espressa on this one. One can find piles of Schlussel crap that is anti-brown and link it to current events any day of the week. To choose to do so with this particular event is in poor taste, IMHO. I usually enjoy your writing, Anna, but of course we’re not going to agree on everything, so I hope you take this comment in the spirit in which it is intended. I’m just expressing my opinion, and I’m not a troll. I’m at school right now.
Oh my….I know everyone who disagrees with me is not a troll. Let me try again to give you context; a few weeks ago, we were overrun with trolls who were using the handles of established commenters, like Mr. Kobayashi for example. After banning and deleting THOSE a few hundred times, one gets wary when one sees a “regular” posting from an IP that is new, which is what said trolls were doing.
No, I don’t expect we will always agree, but I am insulted by the potential insinuation that I was just RARING to post about this and I seized the most deplorable angle possible. Espressa and Desishiksa and I already discussed this amicably; please don’t make me feel like an asshole for doing what is essentially my second job. If you didn’t already know it, I take this (and everything else) seriously. I did not post this carelessly. 🙁
@VMN Rao: I am not sure if you checked the post in the morning, but it was written with a very different purpose.
And if you read the last line of the post, you will see the changes the author has made.
You are entitled to your opinion, but since I have been checking the post from when it was posted and I have to disagree.
I’ve been monitoring this story every few minutes for 12 straight hours and I’m numb. I implore you– please don’t comment about whether or not I should have written this from here on out– this is about a horrific, senseless tragedy, not my poor taste.
If I have offended you, here:
suitablegirl at GMail
Have at it. Let’s leave this thread for things more worthy than meta-commentary or me.
My thoughts and prayers with families of all dead and injured people. ANNA , I ignored your advice and went to the blog of this women, and I feel utterly disgusted. There is so much hate there. I was wondering if it is cause internet gives people anonymity to say stuff which they think anyways and all the venom just comes out. There might be so many people whom I work/interact with and went to school with who think that way about me just cause of my nationality or skin color, and yet they dont say or show anything, but carry so much hate.
My cousin studies in VTech and my Aunt was worried sick with all the backlash that might generate if the rumor of the shooter being “middle eastern” was true. This is such an indescribable tragedy for so many people, hopefully it will not be used to formant hate over foreigners
Picnic Day was at UCD just two days ago, and today I feel like we were lucky. I don’t remember seeing any police, no security guards, anything of the sort on campus. I remember being followed everywhere by every cop in Davis that night, but nothing during the day.
Two hours passed before anything happened? Apparently two dead people isn’t enough to warrant cancelling classes and putting the entire campus under lock down, even when they haven’t yet caught the killer. I can’t believe we let this happen. Hopefully in the future, all school authorities will decide to take some action when their student body is exposed to the risk of death.
I just got back from a very large candle-lit vigil on my university campus for the victims of todays shootings. I’m a university student so I identified with the victims on that level. I hope that even if I weren’t I would have been moved by this tragedy as any warm-blooded person should be. One of the speakers mentioned something that is always at the back of my mind; she hoped that we could show the same sympathy and compassion for, and that our thoughts and prayers could also go towards, the other people all over the world that are also dying from senseless violence. She mentioned in particular the people in Iraq. She was very respectful in her address, and I also say this respectfully: I wish there weren’t a hierarchy of victimhood, based on whatever reason — distance, inability to identify with the victims because of race/nationality/religion/etc, desensitization to violence that occurs in other ways, perhaps on a scale so massive we can’t even isolate it like we can this story. I’m as guilty of this as anyone else, so I hope no one takes this personally, but do I feel that this is the reality of the situation.
Since when is shining the light on bigotry in poor taste. People like Schluss are able to write their hate-provoking garbage everday without anyone saying a word. Thanks Anna, for saying something.
Everyone is upset over this, but like with most tragedies, the real effect is in how it shapes our culture since the vast majority of us have no connection to VT, Blacksburg or the students, faculty and staff.
If you don’t think this hatred needs to be addressed right away, you could talk to Balbir Singh Sodhi about it, if he weren’t dead for the crime of wearing a turban.
Finally some news to cheer up right wing blogs: The shooter was not an American citizen but a permanent resident.
Unverified report: Apparently he was not a permanent resident but on a student visa issued from Shanghai. Maybe he was a Ughur Muslim!
He was a student from South Korea. BBC has the story.
From MSNBC,
Will Ms. Schmucklussel eat her words? Nah! She has her blinders on.
At Schmuckster’s blog, unable to pin down the nationality of the killer, they’re already blaming it on all furren students. Disgusting.
They just idenfied the shooter as a Korean student. This is just just so sad. They had a student eyewitness yesterday on MSNBC who identified him as “Asian” and I hate to say it but when she said Asian I couldn’t help but think “East Asian” not “South East Asian” because generally when people describe a brown person they use the word Indian or maybe middle eastern(regardless of where the person is from) and I’ve never heard the word Asian being used unless it was someone East Asian. And I’m sorry if it was someone brown that would be the first thing all over the news and it would have quickly been about terrorism so I just had a feeling it wasn’t anyone brown. I don’t know why I’m writing about these ridiculous semantics but that was the first thought that crossed my mind.
VERY VERY OFF-TOPIC, or mebbe not (left solely to the discretion of the SM Intern(s) on watch!)…
I just noticed the NRA statement.
Brown folk in the NRA? Wow. Never saw that coming!
Ironically, there’s one morbid upside to this guy being non white, at least right wing rednecks won’t start blaming TV, movies and video games. Such treatment is only reserved for crazy whiteboys.
Reaction of the right wing to the news:
Another job an American will not do (Haha! So funny, lets use the visa status of the shooter to snipe at immigration laws) Some 9-11 hijackers were also on student visas (We dont need any furreiners including students as they commit mass murder) The University Presidents who last year were advocating for more sane policy student visa policies have eggs on their face (Because we all know that foreign students are more likely to commit mass murder and the University Presidents are so fond of mass murder) If they had guns, they would have fought back (only if they had guns in their freaking pockets, who wants to go to school with classmates packing heat)
I haven’t gone through the hundreds of comments left about the VTech shootings, so I apologize if anyone else already raised this point. Also, this comment is in no way meant to diminish the tragedy of yesterday’s events. Still, I think it’s important to recognize that there are parts of the world where 33 people die in senseless acts of violence on a regular basis. While tragic, the VTech shootings are more examples of the violent world in which we live.
Hindsight is always 20-20.
Everyone wants to place blame, which is natural, and everyone wants to speculate with hypotheticals. What is the students had been armed? What if they had locked down the campus?
If I had heard that two people were shot at a dorm across campus, I don’t know if I would have stayed in my room or house and not gone to class. A university campus is not as easy to lock down as a school or a military base with only one entrance. Still people will use this to further their own agendas, whether it is xenophobia, gun control, or gun advocacy.
So students are allowed to carry handguns. How do you ensure that those who carried guns would be the ones that the shooter tried to kill unless you require everyone to carry a gun. Also what happens if the student with the gun is shot and killed by the shooter, what then?
There is such a thing as good and evil. Evil is everywhere and it does not exclude itself to a particular race, religion, gender, or ethnicity. I only hope and pray that people realize that at least at this point we don’t need blame, knee-jerk reactions, or political platitudes. Over 30 people are now dead and what we need is love, sympathy, and compassion.
God is love, love one another…..Fuck I am so saddened right now. I worry for my daughter and she’s only 10 months old.
Heard at Debbie’s blog from a commenter: Do we know for sure the shooter was not a muslim convert? Will we ever know since he was a loner?
is it really that easy for a person on a student’s visa to buy so much weaponry?
is it really that easy for a person on a student’s visa to buy so much weaponry?
I am pretty sure he had a green card (permanent residence)
I notice now that Schlussel has deleted some of the comments from her blog (specifically a few that raised the “Paki” issue last night). She seems to think that all the commenters are from some liberal site and are out to get her.
I find it really appalling that in the face of such tragedy, all some people want to do is push their own xenophobic agenda. And it’s not just Schlussel. You only have to read some of the comments on her blog to know just how many people find it completely credible that a Muslim could have done this.
shakes head
I’ll just never understand people.
This must be devastating to the nutters. They are doing a good job at improvising.
Jane – yes, to most of America, Indians are “Middle Eastern.”
BBC says the student who did the shooting was from South Korea.
Chin up my brother. Asha’s going to have a great life: she’ll be surrounded by people who love her every step of the way, and that will make all the difference in the world.
SP: correction he was an US permanent resident of South Korean origin.
Here hear Asha’s dad. I hate all the political discussions stemming from this. It’s such a massive tragedy. It’s just a really really sad but completely freak incident something no one could have planned properly for nor avoided given the nature of the incident. Bad things happen sometimes that cannot be prevented. That is life.
The Washington Post on the shooter’s identity.
Seriously if the 16 year old kids on the street in NYC can get a gun on the street and it is quite easy to do so why do people make this about the ‘ease of weaponry’. Remember bad guys don’t follow rules, they can get a hold of anything!
“I find it really appalling that in the face of such tragedy, all some people want to do is push their own xenophobic agenda. And it’s not just Schlussel. You only have to read some of the comments on her blog to know just how many people find it completely credible that a Muslim could have done this.”
I agree Hema which is the exact reason why Anna had to blog WHAT she did WHEN she did it…I enjoy SM because it seems in large measure to counter those with too much power and far too much ignorance who would gladly take the black, brown and yellow; force us into into boxes and dump us out to sea. Thank you Anna.
Welcome to the real Virginia. Gun ownership is religion.
The Columbine kids bought their ammo at K-mart.
Thanks for the clarification. Most news sources are saying that the student was from South Korea and some are even saying he was on a student visa, odd.
“is it really that easy for a person on a student’s visa to buy so much weaponry? Seriously if the 16 year old kids on the street in NYC can get a gun on the street and it is quite easy to do so why do people make this about the ‘ease of weaponry’. Remember bad guys don’t follow rules, they can get a hold of anything!”
i guess i was assuming (perhaps incorrectly) that the weapons/ammunition he had were legally bought for some reason. but if he was a permanent resident as amfd says then even that would make sense.
I don’t think he was on a student visa…I guess no one read my link so I’ll paraphrase it. The Washington Post says he was originally from South Korea, but moved to the United States as a child. The article didn’t comment on whether he was a citizen or not, but he could be. He was a Virginia local, a native of Centreville, Va.
Seriously if the 16 year old kids on the street in NYC can get a gun on the street and it is quite easy to do so why do people make this about the ‘ease of weaponry’. Remember bad guys don’t follow rules, they can get a hold of anything
The last two weapons he bought were purchased from a gun store as the investigators found receipts in his pocket.
Buying guns, ammo easy under Virginia’s lenient laws
I did read the article, which clarifies a good deal – was just curious about why news sources would still go on to identify the student as “from South Korea” if he was a permanent US resident who came to the US at a young age.
whoops, sorry, I misread #191–I thought you were saying he was on a student visa.
SP: From what I read he moved from South Korea at a young age and went to high school in the US. However, dont hold me to that since the description seems to change every hour or so.
Via Boing Boing and Wired Magazine, comes a story of a misidentified perp in this incident, who is a federally licensed “collector of curios and relics” and possesses a semi-automatic carbine among others!
Before I get too caught up, condolences on behalf of students and faculty from Florida State University to our fellow ACC team, the Virginia Tech Hokies.
SP–I was wondering about that too. It’s like they can’t let go of the foreign angle.
Unfortunately I disregarded ANNA’s advice and clicked on the link to Debbie Schlussel’s blog. I had actually never heard of her until recently. She makes me sick.