Tech Gunman's Family Allows Release of His Medical Records

Jun 14, 09:07 PM

Current Headlines: By Matthew Bowers, The Virginian-Pilot, Norfolk, Va.

Jun. 14--BLACKSBURG

The family of Seung-Hui Cho, the gunman who killed 32 Virginia Tech students and professors on April 16, has allowed his university mental-health records to be released to a state panel investigating the shootings.

Larry Hincker, a Tech spokesman, said today that Virginia Tech officials have been working with a liaison to the Cho family since May 22 to obtain permission for the student's records to be turned over to the panel and avoid a possible court battle.

Hincker said the records were given to authorities on Tuesday, and delivered to the investigative commission on Wednesday.

The announcement came at the start of a media tour of the refurbished Norris Hall, the Virginia Tech engineering building in the center of campus where Cho killed most of his victims before killing himself. The three-story facility's laboratories and offices are scheduled to reopen to students and instructors on Monday. School officials say it no longer will house regular classrooms. Most of the victims died in the classroom.

W. Gerald Massengill, chairman of the state investigative panel, had said the group would go to court if necessary to obtain Cho's records.

Panel members have said they were frustrated that state and university officials hadn't provided them with Cho's medical, mental health or scholastic records. Officials cited federal privacy laws, which protect people's records even after death. Cho's family, however, has the right to release the records.

Massengill said Cho's family has asked that the records not be released to the public, but he said he hopes some information gleaned by the panel can be shared more broadly, including whether Cho ever sought help at Tech's student counseling center as he was directed by court officials.

"I think the people of Virginia and parents of these children who were killed have a right to know," he said.

The panel is scheduled to release at least an interim report by mid-August.

Today's media tour of Norris Hall included the four second-floor classrooms where several shootings occurred; Cho also had killed two students earlier that April morning in a dormitory across campus.

Chillingly evident was how little space there was to run or hide. The classrooms are eight to nine steps across, eight to 11 front to back -- modest-looking, even without being filled with furniture. Students who leapt to safety from Room 204 squeezed through 20-inch windows and dropped from a height taller than a basketball hoop.

Hincker said the classrooms will remain locked until the university determines how to use the spaces. A decision is expected by the end of the summer.

For now, guards will allow inside Norris only students, staff and approved visitors. The university wants to minimize sightseeing, Hincker said.

Staff writer Christina Nuckols contributed to this report.

Matthew Bowers, (757) 222-3983,

matthew.bowers@pilotonline.com

-----

To see more of the The Virginian-Pilot, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.pilotonline.com.

Copyright (c) 2007, The Virginian-Pilot, Norfolk, Va.

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.