CNN ran a report on Daniel Kim, a 21-year-old Korean-American student at Virginia Tech who committed suicide eight months after the Cho Seung-Hui Seung-Hui Cho massacre. His family feels Virginia Tech ignored the warning signs:
William Kim still calls the cell phone of his son, a 21-year-old senior at Virginia Tech, just to hear his voice. He feels cheated out of a chance to save his only boy.
His son, Daniel Kim, wasn’t a victim of last year’s massacre that left 32 students and professors dead. His son committed suicide eight months later, after falling into a deep depression.
A Korean-American, Kim feared that classmates might mistake him for shooter Seung-Hui Cho.
“They treated it like some kind of joke,” William Kim said of the way the university handled his son’s warning signs.
One of his online buddies had even emailed school authorities:
Pribush, who recently graduated from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York, had met Kim online in the “World of Warcraft” game. In the months after the Virginia Tech massacre, Pribush said, he noticed a change in Kim.
“He was saying he was Asian, and he really didn’t have too many friends in real life,” Pribush said.
Then, in late October, Kim revealed his darkest thoughts. “He actually thought about purchasing a gun and planning to kill himself like soon. I’m like, ‘Dan is that a joke; is that something funny? I don’t think that’s funny. You shouldn’t joke about having a gun.’ He said, ‘I’m serious. I actually bought a gun.’ “
Several days later, Kim threatened suicide again by “swallowing pills” and getting into a “car accident.” Pribush became so concerned, he eventually e-mailed the Virginia Tech health officials.
Blacksburg police records show that they interviewed Kim and they classified him as “C-4,” which is the code for OK. And then police drove off.
Interestingly, when first informed of the suicide, the family was quite suspicious at first, noting the lack of a suicide note and erased phone call records.
OK, I’m going to ask it — I really have no idea how “plugged in” Kim was to the greater global Korean community, but is it at least possible Kim’s paranoia about being mistaken for Cho was partially a result of ceaseless warnings in the Korean press — warnings that prompted official apologies from both Korean and Korean-American officials and figures — of the impending “Great Backlash” that was supposed to follow the massacre?
Just asking.
20 Comments
I think Kim’s paranoia and subsequent suicide indicate some kind of mental illness. Millions of ethnic Koreans in the US heard the same warnings, but this is the only suicide linked to VT. I am surprised and saddened at the apparent half-hearted response to the email. I have been told by school counselors that people who verbalize a desire to kill themselves are crying out for help and if they don’t get it, they may follow through.
To: Dr. Evil
From: Igor
Dear Doctor Evil,
I again bring your attention to an asset appearing to go rogue.
The concern is Marmot of Korea bringing unscheduled attention
to our V Tech programs.
Virginia Tech is located in Blacksburg, VA.
Blacksburg, VA houses a US government ABOVE TOP SECRET underground laboratory (in the side of a local Blacksburg mountain) that develops in conjunction with DARPA, weapons such as human robotic mind control programming
Virginia Tech focus:
* bio mechanics and tissue cell engineering
* biomedical engineering
* DNA splicing
* studies the impact of new technologies on human behavior
* departments for disaster-related trauma in children reporting directly to Laura Bush
* works on human, crop, and animal diseases
* helps advance science similar to insect/disease-resistant crop seed from Monsanto
More on Virginia Tech:
* has on-campus experts in avian influenza H5N1, “the bird flu”
* active partner with DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency)
* actively works on neuroengineering projects (mind control)
* Virginia Tech students are frequently recruited by the CIA
V-Tech received and continues to receive grants for millions from DARPA
Our Korean micro-wave gang stalking team is recommended for neutralization of this info compromise.
Faithfully yours,
Igor
Boy, now I know how Chinese Americans feel like just about right now. Every day it’s a bash session against Chinese.. uuhh. I mean Koreans.
We get it now. Korea + China = evil.
@ 2
Weak.
Anyways, is the denial of, and subsequent assigning of responsibility a common reaction in these kind of cases? Perhaps a method to absolve himself of (probably undeserved) guilt for not seeing the signs himself?
I would think that if a family member of mine (or close friend) did the same thing, it would probably destroy my state of mind while seeing the signs “clearly” (for the first time) in hindsight. I suppose that finding a scapegoat could be a standard reaction.
I am not a psychologist so I really have no idea.
#4. well said.
Why didn’t his parents pay more attention? Of course, maybe he lived far from them, but then, didn’t they check up on him from time to time?
Anyway, I think that VT screwed up royally on this one, but I find the headline in the article disingenuous and only there to stir up shit.
As for being mistaken for Cho– WTF? Cho killed himself after killing everyone else!
I should say the plagiarized story in the Herald (or was it the Times) had a shit-stirring headline.
Oops, CNN has the same shit-stirring headline.
A Korean-American, Kim feared that classmates might mistake him for shooter Seung-Hui Cho.
Sometimes it isn’t all about you.
If no one had mistaken him for Cho, then what made him think that people would mistake him for Cho?
*sigh*
The parents should look at themselves a little harder instead of blaming the univerisity.
Er, what about the well-documented fact that Koreans really seem to enjoy offing themselves?
We do not know how much the parents knew about Kim’s mental state. Even if he was acting strangely, as an adult, he could not have been forced into therapy unless family members could demonstrate to a court that he was a danger to himself or others.
I think Marmot has a point with the Korean media all screaming “backlash!”, and I’m led to believe that Koreans in America had similar expectations about what would happen in the aftermath.
Maybe this is a bit off-topic, but if we take The Great Backlash That Never Happened and couple it with a recent thread about foreigners sexually assaulting Korean women, we have, as I see it, one of the biggest, ugliest cases of Freudian projection I’ve ever seen.
# 11,
Hummm…. what do you mean by “offing”…?
# 11,
Ah, got it. Your comment is a prime candidate for deletion given its racial overtones.
Anyways, Korea suicide rate is actually not the highest. Eastern European countries appear to have higher suicide rates.
http://nitawriter.wordpress.co.....the-world/
A bit crude there, no?
The point that I think Mr.Mao was trying to make, the point that his own glibness totally got in the way of, is that Koreans have a higher suicide rate in general than, I guess, Western countries. Although the use of the word “enjoy” is interesting. Mr.Mao, are you being funny, or is there really well-documented evidence that Koreans “enjoy” suicide?
WangKon’s own link confirms the point that Mr.Mao is trying to make, I think (barring the “enjoy” thing). If you consider suicide rate relative to economic prosperity, Korea suddenly skyrockets, second perhaps only to their Nipponese neighbors. This, to me, is far more interesting. That suicide increased in Korea when things were actually getting better.
All of this is besides the point. The unspoken theme here is that a Korean committing suicide is somehow less tragic because it’s more common for a Korean. In the cold hard facts of logic, this may even be true. But it’s still kinda a dick thing to say.
Anyway, sorry if I offend you, Mr.Mao. I’m only doing it because I’m disappointed that no one want to discuss my “projection” comment, which I thought was pretty neat.
Sure. Let’s make the University responsible for every student. See how well that plays…No drinking, smoking cigarettes, sex, driving, eating meat, loud music, etc. because the University won’t allow you to endanger your health. Mandatory psychoanalysis sessions, because your thoughts need to be controlled so you don’t hurt yourself…
Utter bovine scatology. Kim was an adult old enough to sign a mortgage. His suicide was his fault, not the University’s. The family may not want to recognize it; but there it is. It wasn’t even his parents’ fault. It was all on him.
I do apologize to any who may find this heartless; but some decisions can’t be taken back. Life is not some video-game where you can go back to a saved-game moment of triumph any time you make a wrong choice.
Maybe, if there is any blame outside of the suicide, it is the lack of teaching consequences to children under the age of five…
If you want a “nanny state”, move to Zimbabwe, North Korea, Venezuela, or Cuba. If you want freedom to choose, don’t blame someone else if you choose poorly.
Daniel Kim’s parents never blamed the university. Kim’s father replied “yes” to a question about whether the university had let his son down. “Let down” means “to disappoint” or “fail to meet expectations.” This is not the same as placing blame for the suicide. In other words, Daniel Kim’s family was disappointed with the response of the university. It failed to meet expectations because it did not properly carry out its own policy.
I don’t know the scale of backlash that Korean media expected, but it’s not as if we’re all enlightened rational beings in the US.
There were, for example, abuse against Korean students that seemed to be motivated by the V Tech shooting. Not that I knew about it at all until I met a law student who volunteered at some university organization or other. She told me how such incidents don’t happen anymore (11 months or so later) but she was surprised I (as a Korean American) hadn’t found out from some of the cases making it into the school paper. It was a headache for the university, apparently. Or at least the place she was volunteering at.
There is a slight difference in the way people interacted with me immediately after the shooting and how they react to me now. I suppose that could have been in my head, but I would argue that this is how you would expect some people to act based on how V-Tech was 24/7 occupation for the talking heads those days.
If this Daniel Kim guy was a sensitive/paranoid type, I don’t think he needed much help from Korean media to justify a sense of isolation or victimization.