PRESS RELEASE
Virginia Tech Killer Was a Massacre-Videogame User; EIR Has Shown This in Past Multiple-Shooting Cases
April 18, 2007 (EIRNS)—The following was reported April 17, 2007 by Washington Post reporters Debbi Wilgoren, Sari Horwitz, and Robert E. Pierre, under the headline, "Centreville Student Was Va. Tech Shooter": "... Several Korean youths who knew Cho Seung Hui from his high school days said he was a fan of violent video games, particularly Counterstrike, a hugely popular online game, in which players join terrorism or counterterrorism groups and try to shoot each other...."
Just such a phenomenon has been reported by Helga Zepp-LaRouche, and by EIR, since 1999, in analyses and interviews with experts on mass shootings in recent years.
The above report was obtained by searching the washingtonpost.com website for the word "counterstrike." But this reportage was removed by the Post in the article as published — the article to which the reader is directed when clicking on the above search result. The final article is headlined, "Student Wrote About Death and Spoke in Whispers, But No One Imagined What Cho Seung Hui Would Do" with the byline,
"By Ian Shapira and Michael E. Ruane
"Washington Post Staff Writers
"Wednesday, April 18, 2007
"BLACKSBURG, Va., April 17—"
Executive Intelligence Review has established an international reputation for expertise on the subject of the role of these violent video-games in producing cold killers.
In the case of the April 26, 2002 massacre at the Johann Gutenberg Gymnasium in Erfurt, Germany, 16 people were killed before the shooter, Robert Steinhäuser, committed suicide. EIR reported May 10, 2002, the shooter's "mind had been conditioned by his obsession with killer video/computer games, such as "Ninja," "Doom," and "Counterstrike" (produced by the notorious firm, Sierra Entertainment). When he carried out his massacre, he was dressed in black with a black mask, imitating the Ninja warriors found in such killer games. A police raid on Steinhäuser's room found many such killer video games."
Within moments of learning of the Virginia Tech shootings, Lyndon LaRouche posed a series of key questions about the incident, including the question of whether the shooter was addicted to violent video games. The LaRouche comments were posted on the LPAC website at 9:51 AM EDT on April 17.
April 17, 2007 (EIRNS)—The following press release was issued today by the Lyndon LaRouche Political Action Committee.
Commenting on the breakind news of the Virginia Tech shootings on April 16, Lyndon LaRouche stressed that the pattern and profile is important to unlock the event. Were the shootings random, or aimed at specific targets? How many shots were fired at each victim; e.g. reports that most victims died from one shot indicates a very high level of accuracy. Was there video or Internet shooting training involved? We have seen this kind of campus-based mass shootings before as in Columbine in 1999, or Paducah, Kentucky before that, where the video gaming played an important part. Was the level of apparent planning, and skill reflective of a military and/or law enforcement training?
What were the flaws in the security procedures? It has been reported that there were bomb threats on the campus in the past couple of weeks. Was there a breakdown of security procedures, on April 16, after the first early morning shooting—and why? At one point there was a "lockdown" of the campus, which was then lifted.
LaRouche said that this incident can be used by those who want to impose a dictatorship for those purposes in the context of a national and international security alert.
