Families of two slain Tech students file suit on anniversary

Families of two students killed by Virginia Tech senior Seung-Hui Cho are suing the university, its counseling center, the local mental-health agency and several top officials, accusing them of gross negligence.

The families also are suing Cho's estate, accusing it of wrongful death.

The lawsuits, filed April 16 on the second anniversary of the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history, said the university and its top officials were more worried about their image after Cho's first two shootings that day than the safety of students.

Cho killed 32 people that day, beginning with two slayings shortly after 7 a.m. at a dormitory and continuing 2 ½ hours later at Norris Hall, where he killed 30 students and faculty and injured 19.

Other families settled lawsuits last summer — before a series of disclosures from Tech and police records and officials about their inaction after the first two shootings and in reacting to Cho's earlier threatening behavior.

The families of Erin N. Peterson and Julia K. Pryde believe the university "obfuscated the fact that there had been a double homicide" after the first two slayings and "issued a release which served to reassure…that there was no cause of personal alarm."

The lawsuits allege that six top Tech officials, including President Charles W. Steger, meeting as the university's Emergency Policy Group, delayed a warning because they were worried about damage to Tech's image.

Their lawsuits, filed in Fairfax County Circuit Court, say Tech did little to react to Cho's earlier disturbing behavior, including an incident that led to his being thrown out of professor Nikki Giovanni's class during his junior year.

The lawsuits say Tech had no threat-assessment plan or policy and that Cho had displayed several warning signs identified in government guidelines for dealing with dangerous students.

The suits charge that the area mental-health agency did not follow state law when it failed to produce a treatment plan for Cho after a judge ordered him to get mental-health treatment in 2005.

The lawsuits seek $10 million in damages on 10 separate counts.