Re: Virginia Tech killer Seung-Hui Cho was "mentally ill" and an "imminent dange
VT is a public university, yes? Sovereign immunity may shield...depends on Virginia law. I haven't really heard them talk about it.
If not, you can bet they'll be sued. I'm not sure that they really did anything that was just shockingly wrong. I mean, it did look like a garden-variety domestic dispute gone wrong until he went psycho a few hours later. How many times in the news do we hear about man killing wife and then himself (which was an original possibility until they figured out it was the RA) and that's it. Rarely does it go any further. I suppose they could've alerted the campus community much faster than they did.
The university I attended was larger (population wise, smaller area wise) and there's no way you could shut it down. For one, it had a major hospital on its campus and secondly it is accessible from so many points. Even if they locked down their buildings, the kid was a student. He likely had access to those buildings anyways. I'm just not sure what more they could've done (at least looking at it from their shoes after the first shooting).
When you're talking about schools like Virginia Tech or the one I went to or a number of universities that have student, faculty and staff populations from 20,000-40,000 people, it's like trying to shut down an entire city. It's just not possible.