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 Had university officials not waited more than two hours to tell the campus about the initial shootings, lives could have been saved when Seung-Hui Cho later began his massacre inside a classroom building, according to the report, released Wednesday night.
"Warning the students, faculty and staff might have made a difference," the panel wrote. "So the earlier and clearer the warning, the more chance an individual had of surviving."
But the report concluded that while swifter warnings might have helped students and faculty, a lockdown of the 131 buildings on campus would not have been feasible.
And while the first message sent by the university could have gone out at least an hour earlier and been more specific, Cho likely still would have found more people to kill, the report found.
"There does not seem to be a plausible scenario of a university response to the double homicide that could have prevented the tragedy of considerable magnitude on April 16," the report said. "Cho had started on a mission of fulfilling a fantasy of revenge."
The eight-member panel, appointed by Gov. Timothy M. Kaine, spent four months investigating the worst mass shooting in modern U.S. history. Panel chairman Gerald Massengill declined to comment Wednesday night, but was scheduled to speak at a news conference with the governor on Thursday.
"The purpose for this report was not to fix blame, it was to fix the problem," Kaine told ABC's "Good Morning America" on Thursday amid criticism from some of the victims' families that the report held no one accountable for the rampage.
"Certainly there have already been deep, lasting and severe consequences on the Virginia Tech campus among all who have been involved with this
-- administrators, faculty, etc.," the governor said. "I know those discussions will continue in the days ahead, but I think it's important to note that not a single one of the recommendations in this report are going to be fixed by a personnel decision about Person A or Person B."
The report detailed a breakdown in communication about the gunman, who had shown signs of mental health problems for years.
His middle school teachers had found signs of suicidal and homicidal thoughts in his writings after the Columbine High School shootings in 1999. He received psychiatric counseling and was on medication for a short time. In 2006, he wrote a paper for his Virginia Tech creative writing class about a young man who hates students at his school and plans to kill them and himself, the report said.
The university's counseling center failed to give Cho the support he needed despite the warnings, including his referral to the center in 2005 because of bizarre behavior and concerns he was suicidal, the panel said. It blamed a lack of resources, misinterpretation of privacy laws and passivity.
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 Individuals and departments at Virginia Tech were aware of incidents that suggested his mental instability, but "did not intervene effectively. No one knew all the information and no one connected all the dots," the report said.
The report said the response by university and Blacksburg police to the dormitory shootings was well coordinated, and said the police response at Norris Hall was "prompt and effective," as was triage and evacuation of the wounded.
But it also noted that university police may have erred in prematurely concluding that the first two shootings were the result of a domestic dispute.
Holly Sherman, whose daughter Leslie was killed, said the report's findings were what she expected, including "a number of critical errors in judgment."
"At Virginia Tech, he exhibited seriously deviant behavior that went unchecked, and the faculty did not take adequate steps to put him in check," she wrote in an e-mail to The Associated Press.
Diane Strollo, whose daughter Hilary was shot and survived, said she was thankful the panel recognized that an earlier warning could have derailed Cho's plans for Norris Hall.
"Had some or all of the student body been notified that 2 students were gunned down that morning, they may have had heightened sensitivity to the sound of gunshots and other suspicious activity," Strollo wrote in an e-mail to the AP. "One or two minutes of notice may have been critical in saving more lives in Norris Hall."
Derek O'Dell, who was shot in the arm, said he probably wouldn't have gone to class that morning if he had received word that a shooting had occurred in a dormitory and the killer hadn't been caught.
"I don't think anybody would have," he said.
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On the Net:
Panel's report
[Associated Press; by Kristen
Gelineau]
Associated Press writers Dena Potter, Bob Lewis and Vicki Smith contributed to this report.
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This
material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or
redistributed.
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