Images from Cho's 'multimedia manifesto'KEY POINTS:
BLACKSBURG, Virginia - A videotaped diatribe by the Virginia Tech gunman shocked victims' families and mesmerized television viewers, but police say it yielded little for their investigation of the campus massacre.
Students at the university expressed disgust and disbelief at self-made photos and a disturbing video the killer mailed to NBC News as he paused on Monday in the midst of the deadliest shooting rampage in modern US history.
Police handling the investigation criticized the airing from Wednesday evening of the images and rants by Cho Seung-Hui, who killed 32 people and then himself at the sprawling campus in southwestern Virginia.
State police chief Steve Flaherty said victims' families and the university community had been badly struck not only by the tragedy but by the intense media attention surrounding it.
Cho's video manifesto of him brandishing guns and ranting at times incoherently drew wall-to-wall US news coverage.
"I'm sorry that you all were exposed to these images," Flaherty told a televised news conference.
Campus authorities have also faced questions after it emerged that they had become aware of Cho's troubled psychological state nearly a year and a half before he went on his killing spree.
With Cho's mental problems on full display in the video manifesto he left behind, some family members of the victims were so upset over NBC's decision to air the images that they cancelled appearances on the network.
NBC said it had acted responsibly but the network and a rival, ABC, said they would limit future use.
"Once you've seen it, its repetition is little more than pornography once that first news cycle is passed," said Jeffrey Schneider, ABC News senior vice president.
Package
The package received by NBC News on Wednesday carried a time stamp showing Cho mailed it after he killed his first two victims in a dormitory but before he went on to slaughter 30 more in classrooms. NBC turned the material over to the FBI.
"That's crazy. He kills two people and then goes to the post office and then he's ready for round two? It's creepy," said graduate student Nick Jeremiah, 34.
The dead included not only Americans but students from Vietnam, Indonesia, India and Egypt. A professor with dual US-Israeli citizenship was also killed, hailed as a hero for barring the door to give students time to escape.
In a sign of exhaustion with the media spotlight since Monday, a large hand-lettered sign in the heart of the campus said "Media, stay away."
The university said Cho's victims would be awarded their degrees posthumously.
The images and rambling monologue suffused with paranoia added to a chilling portrait of Cho, a 23-year-old student whose dark writings had worried professors and classmates.
While acknowledging that the material from Cho was likely devastating to the victims' families, NBC News President Steve Capus defended the decision to broadcast it.
"This is I think as close as we will ever come to being inside of the mind of a killer," he said on MSNBC. "Pretty much every single news organisation all around the world has made the same decision, that it was appropriate to release this information."
Police chief Flaherty said that while investigators appreciated NBC's cooperation, "We're rather disappointed in the editorial decision to broadcast these disturbing images."
In the video and an 1800-word document, Cho railed against wealth and debauchery, portrayed himself as a defender of the weak and voiced admiration for the 1999 Columbine High School massacre.
"You have vandalized my heart, raped my soul and tortured my conscience," said Cho, speaking directly to the camera.
- REUTERS
