Virginia Tech Treated Suicidal Student Like Joke
By Kwon Mee-yoo
Staff Reporter
William Kim, the father of a Virginia Tech student who committed suicide seven months after the massacre that left 32 students dead last April feels the school was negligent over the death of his son.
``They treated it like some kind of joke,'' he said of the way the university handled his son's warning signs, according to a CNN report.
Daniel Kim, a Korean-American student who apparently feared that classmates might mistake him for Cho Seung-hui, the perpetrator in the mass shooting, killed himself after falling into a deep depression.
According to his friends, Kim exhibited suicidal tendencies, including talking about buying a gun and threatening to take an overdose.
This triggered Shaun Pribush, who had become an online friend of Kim's, to e-mail the Virginia Tech health center with the subject line: ``Emergency About Suicidal Student.''
The e-mail, sent according to CNN at 3:58 a.m. November 5, 2007, read thus:
``Dear health center,
This is a serious email, this is not a joke. I am Shaun Pribush, a student at RPI, but I am
Apr 16, 2008