This is a partial transcript from “Hannity & Colmes,” April 17, 2007, that has been edited for clarity.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
COL. STEVE FLAHERTY, VIRGINIA STATE POLICE SUPERINTENDENT: Recovered two weapons, a 9mm handgun as well as a .22 caliber handgun. The investigators have traced these weapons and confirmed that Cho did legally purchase these weapons in accordance with Virginia law.
There’s no evidence at this time to suggest that Cho left behind any type of a suicide note.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SEAN HANNITY, CO-HOST: That was Virginia State Police superintendent earlier today informing the public that the investigation into the gunman is ongoing.
And there are many questions that still need to be answered tonight.
We continue with the host of “At Large”, FOX News Channel’s Geraldo Rivera. He’s on the scene. Former LAPD Detective Mark Fuhrman. Jon Lieberman is with us from “America’s Most Wanted” and forensic pathologist Dr. Michael Baden.
Mark Fuhrman, let me go to you. As we now begin to get some information about this shooter, about his background — he’s a loner, the creative writing and all these signs — what insight do you have so far, Mark?
MARK FUHRMAN, FORMER LAPD DETECTIVE: Well, when you look at it, I don’t think it was a surprise. Yesterday on John Gibson’s radio show we had the time to actually open up this dialogue a little bit. And I said I wouldn’t be surprised if this guy was on antidepressants, which would add to all the other symptoms; the reason he was on antidepressants.
Who’s the doctor? Who’s the psychiatrist? What did he hear from this man? I don’t think it’s a surprise at all, Sean.
But let’s not look at police here to actually take action. Any police officer would take this guy and deep six him any place. He’s a moron. And you know he’s going to be a problem.
So this is a permissive society that allows the outpatient mentality of our society. And this is what the outcome is.
HANNITY: John, on “America’s Most Wanted”, you look into the backgrounds of a lot of people that are committing these crimes. A lot of signs and symptoms here that were missed. Do you think we’ll learn from this?
JON LIEBERMAN, “AMERICAN MOST WANTED”: Well, absolutely Sean. I mean, we hunt killers for a living, but we’ve never seen anything like the magnitude in this case.
And from what law enforcement sources are telling us in this case, it looks like this guy planned out a fantasy and then executed it to a “T”. It was almost like he had a story written, and he wanted to be the star in his own tragedy of sorts.
And you know, it’s like what was reported on FOX News earlier today. When some of his classmates said that they passed around sign-in sheet and he put a question mark when they asked him his name.
I mean, this guy didn’t have an identity. This was the identity that he wanted. He wanted to be remembered like this.
And there were just so many warning signs. And just the premeditated nature. One law enforcement source told us today that what shocked him the most was that in life, this guy Cho was so stoic and calculating and calm.
And that’s exactly the same way he was just moments before he killed himself. Just methodically going room to room, reloading the guns and shooting. I mean, it’s just horrible.
HANNITY: Dr. Baden, cold blooded, premeditated murder here. What would be some of the things you’d be looking for, Dr. Baden?
DR. BADEN, FORENSIC PATHOLOGIST: Well, I think that we’re not very good at predicting behavior. That’s the problem. There are lots of odd people around who aren’t going to harm anybody.
And I think, from the medical examiner’s point, they’re going to be looking very carefully. And fortunately, Virginia has one of the best medical examiner symptoms in the country. They’re going to be looking for whether there were any drugs on board. Had he been — any history of taking hallucinogenic drugs or depressive drugs, as Mark said? The hair can help with that, also.
And also whether there were any diseases that he might have. Charles Whitman, who started this shooting, campus shooting in Austin, Texas, back in 1966, had a brain tumor.
So there are a lot we’ll learn from the medical examiner’s office about the decedent in addition to going back over his past history.
HANNITY: Geraldo, let me go back to you here. The professor who is Carolyn Rude, the chairwoman of the university’s English department, she’s the one that said that the writing was so disturbing that she referred him to the university’s counseling service.
Now, she pointed out sometimes in creative writing, people reveal things you’d never know. Is it creative or are they describing things that they want to do here?
GERALDO RIVERA, FOX NEWS: You know, in my opinion, Sean, it’s very difficult to make a judgment about these freaks on the basis of what they write or whether they’re loners. I think Mark probably is onto something.
You know, somebody prescribed that antidepressant to him. Was he being monitored on this medication? What was his relationship to his own parents? Did the counselor, indeed, follow through after he was referred to the counselor because of things that set off red flags? You know, the fact that he was alone in life.
But, I — I fret about the fact about that we can’t overlook the personal responsibility of this guy, Cho Seung-Hui. I mean, it was him who decided. It was he who decided to buy those guns. It was he who decided in that five-week-long period after buying those guns to — to wreak this destruction, to wreak this havoc, to destroy these lives.
It was he who was so narcissistic, so selfish, so self-centered that, whatever his woes, whatever his disappointments in life, he could so transfer them to this woman, so much better person than he could ever hope to be. Or to this man, who was in the band and, you know, a lovely person, a resident advisor.
To her, I mean, you compare this loser, this loner to the victims and you say, “Oh, my God, where is the justice?”
You know, but to suggest — and here a Holocaust survivor who gives up his life on Holocaust Remembrance Day. It goes on and on. This fellow, an engineer, who’s, you know, coming up with new cures for cerebral palsy. I mean, it goes — the list goes on and on.
But, you know, in a free society where people live and basically are their own mentors and their own monitors, where does society’s responsibility begin and where does the individual’s end?
I think that we can’t lose focus of the fact that this was a murdering monster. This was a dog who deprived all of us of the people who are on the screen right now.
ALAN COLMES, CO-HOST: And Mark Fuhrman…
RIVERA: It makes me so angry and makes me feel helpless at the same time.
COLMES: Mark, as Geraldo points out, this is where the responsibility lies, with this person. I know there’s a lot of finger pointing. People want to look at the police or security. This is really what the issue is.
One of the co-directors of the creative writing program, Lucinda Roy, says she notified authorities about him. But legally there was no opportunity to do anything, in spite of the fact that he had these horrible writings and some predictors in place. But nothing really could have been done.
FUHRMAN: Well, Alan, look, she teaches thousands of students, and she singles this one man out and says there’s a problem.
And I think the police, as they said before, they would love to take care of this person. They’d love to pull him out of the university. They would love to put him in an institution.
But society and the legislators and the outpatient mentality of our society, the warm and fuzzy, we want to give him counseling and leave him in place. We don’t want to damage him further. And this is the outcome.
This is not a law enforcement issue. Once he came on the radar mentally, this is an issue with society in the rules they have made. And some of those rules now they have to live with.
RIVERA: I would argue a lot about that. Having exposed plenty of institutions for people who are developmentally disabled or mentally ill and seen the horrors inside those walls, I don’t think that institutionalizing everybody who’s freaky is the right answer.
We just have to monitor those who have this hair trigger. I don’t know how you sort the wheat from the chafe (sic), but we have to do it.
HANNITY: Have to take a break. More on these deadly shootings as we examine. When we come back, what would lead a 23-year-old college senior to commit such terrible crimes? That’s next.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The world was watching you yesterday. And in the darkest moment, in the history of this university, the world saw you and saw you respond in a way that built community.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COLMES: We now continue with our panel.
Jon Lieberman, you know, I guess we’re all struggling to make sense of this. You’ve covered this in “America’s Most Wanted”, these kind of incidents, for years.
The idea that we could somehow predict the way how someone could one day behave, take preventative measures, I mean, you know. And we have a personality profile. The person always seems to be quiet, unassuming, was not really well noticed. Are there patterns here we can — that help us make sense of this?
LIEBERMAN: Yes. I tell you, Alan, the toughest part about these mass murder cases is, in most cases these guys are such cowards that they end up killing themselves or they do suicide by cop, where cops kill them. So police can never really question them to get into their minds in terms of what leads up to this.
And that’s why, Alan, what police are doing right now is so important to kind of build that profile. Right now they’re going through his hard drive, going through his writings, all of his computers, all of his documents.
And what they’re trying to do is put together a narrative of this kid’s last 20 years or so to sort of see what were the signs? What were some of the issues?
And then that helps us build a profile, so that in the future we can say here’s what we should have seen in the beginning. This could have led to this. And that’s why the work that police are doing is so very important right now.
And, Alan, as a law enforcement source told me tonight, there is some sort of evidence that Cho had shot one of these guns before. Did he go out and do target practice preparing for his big day? We’re not exactly sure.
But all of this led up to this very much premeditated massacre. People like this don’t just snap. This is a long build-up phase.
COLMES: Michael, we keep hearing words — of course, “massacre” gets used. We hear “serial killer.” We hear the word “spree”, “mass murder.”
BADEN: Right.
COLMES: What meaning do we — do those words have?
BADEN: They really have meanings. Mass murder has to be four people — at least four people at one time. And it’s also called massacre. Mass murder and massacre are used interchangeably.
A serial murder has to have cooling off period between killing people. So, there may be a couple of days in between or a couple weeks, a couple months.
And mass murders and serial murders are almost always premeditated, planned. Spree killing is a rampage. It’s a spur of the moment and often is not planned. And then they can kill a lot of people.
HANNITY: Hey, Mark Fuhrman, in your mind, where does the investigation need to go from here?
FUHRMAN: Well, I think they’ve done a fairly good job. I think doing the psychological autopsy on the suspect will be helpful in the future for, really, other law enforcement agencies, as well as Virginia Tech and the FBI.
But, you know, the investigation needs to really establish how does a resident alien get registered firearms like handguns? I thought you had to be a citizen of the United States.
He was taking antidepressants. Who prescribed them? And he obviously was not truthful on two of those boxes when he filled them in to get the gun.
Did he or was he provided with the second handgun from somebody other than a reputable firearms source? You know, does anybody know? Did anybody know and did anybody discuss this with Cho at any time?
RIVERA: That’s absolutely legal.
HANNITY: Right.
RIVERA: That gun, he bought that gun legally. A resident alien green card holder in the commonwealth of Virginia can buy a firearm.
FUHRMAN: In the commonwealth. OK.
(CROSSTALK)
LIEBERMAN: The second weapon as long as you wait 30 days.
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