I want to take you through the aftermath of the Virginia Tech shooting.
If your like me you stood there in aw when you heard the news. It took me days to get over, I immediately got on face book to see what was going on. Their were people who had jumped out of windows, posting their stories right away. It was all over the news. But what about now?
How are those students and teachers who went through this ordeal?These are comments from survivers.
" He seemed very thorough about it -- getting almost everyone down -- I pretended to be dead," she said. (
Watch student describe surviving by playing dead)
"He was very silent," said Sheehan, one of only four students in her 25-student German class who were not shot.
Student Tiffany Otey was taking a test inside Norris Hall when the shooting began. She and about 20 other people took refuge behind a locked door in a teacher's office."We forced ourselves against the door so he couldn't come in again, because the door would not lock
.""They were telling us to put our hands above our head and if we didn't cooperate and put our hands above our heads they would shoot," Otey said. "I guess they were afraid, like us -- like the shooter was going to be among one of us." (
Watch students react to shooting)
The first thing that was done was Gov. Tim Kaine signed an executive order closing a loophole that allowed a
Virginia Tech student to purchase
firearms used to kill 32 people and himself on the campus. Kaine's order requires that the names of individuals who are deemed dangerous and ordered by a court to undergo outpatient mental health treatment must be reported to a federal database of those ineligible to buy firearms. Tech gunman Seung-Hui Cho had been ordered to seek outpatient treatment in December 2005. Because he was not committed to a hospital, his mental health information was not reported to a federal database that gun dealers use to conduct background checks.
This is what was going on the week after,
Virginia Tech students somberly returned to campus, pausing for a moment of silence to remember the classmates murdered a week ago in a gunman's rampage. Students and faculty gathered at about 7:10 a.m. near the dormitory where the first victims, Ryan Clark and Emily Hilscher, were killed. They also gathered on the main campus lawn and held several impromptu memorials as the smell of scented candles filled the morning air. In front of the dorm, a small marching band from Alabama played "America the Beautiful" and carried a banner that read, "Alabama loves VT Hokies. Be strong, press on."By the time the moment concluded, more than 100 people had gathered to remember the dead. Afterward, a group of students and campus ministers brought 33 white prayer flags - one for each of the dead, including the gunman, Seung-Hui Cho - from the dorm to the school's War Memorial Chapel. They placed the flags in front of the campus landmark and adorned them with pastel-colored ribbons.
It has now been awhile and the question stands? What to do with the students face book pages? Facebook officials who planned to remove the pages of students killed at
Virginia Tech said they would change their policy and allow the pages to remain up indefinitely as virtual memorials. To "memorialize" a profile means to hide certain features, such as contact and personal information as well as the
groups of which the Facebook user was a member. But friends can still see photo albums, basic and education information and post on the "wall," or message board. The
Virginia Tech victims' pages have become sacred spaces where friends and family swap favorite memories, linger with photos and post messages to their
lost loved one. Friends and family members say that revisiting the profile pages is comforting, and is an avenue to healing. This was a very devastating time, but students seem to be doing fine and moving on. They will never forget what happened and their friends they now mourn. But the students won't let hokie pride go, as they stand strong.
