Families Rebuke Nbc for Broadcast of Killer's Rant

Police, students and victims' relatives turned against the US network NBC yesterday for broadcasting the chilling rant of the Virginia Tech killer as it became clear he had gone to great lengths to amplify his notoriety with a package of video clips, photographs and invective.

As parents of some of those shot dead by Cho Seung-hui expressed horror at the video footage of the killer and cancelled planned interviews with the network, the head of Virginia state police, Steve Flaherty, opened a press conference on campus with a flat rebuke for NBC. "We're rather disappointed in the editorial decision to broadcast these disturbing images," he said. "I'm sorry that you were all exposed to these images."

Col Flaherty said the video told the police nothing they did not know about Cho.

Steve Capus, the NBC president, who shared some of the material with other broadcasters, defended the decision to broadcast. "This is, I think, as close as we will ever come to being inside of the mind of a killer, and I thought that it needed to be released," he said. "Pretty much every single news organisation all around the world has made the same decision, that it was appropriate to release this information."

But the decision quickly alienated parents of victims. Meredith Viera, co-host of NBC's Today programme, said: "We had planned to speak to some family members of victims this morning but they cancelled their appearances because they were very upset with NBC for airing the images." In the face of the criticism, NBC decided yesterday to restrict the number of times it was shown.

Many students, watching on screens around the campus, expressed revulsion. But others had mixed feelings. Kevin Tosh, who was in the dormitory where the first shooting took place, said that while the images may have been too harsh for those directly involved, they helped in one way. "It puts a face to him and the mindset he was in. We can't believe how angry and out of his mind he was," he said.

Cho, 23, killed two students in the first shooting and 30 students and staff two hours later. He stopped in between to post to NBC headquarters in New York a package containing the video footage, digital photographs and a long statement.

NBC received the package on Wednesday and passed it to the police. Asked if the police had requested NBC not to show it, Mr Flaherty said bluntly: "It was NBC's decision to put it out."

Cho sent the package from a post office near the campus minutes before he went to Norris Hall for the second set of shootings. The postal worker who served him could not recall much about him but remembered the address was muddled and corrected part of it.

NBC said another postal employee brought the package to NBC's attention after noticing the Blacksburg return address and a name similar to the words reportedly found scrawled in red ink on Cho's arm after the bloodbath, "Ismail Ax".

Cho filmed himself: the footage shows him reaching out to switch the camera on and off. Police are checking whether he may have hired a hotel room to film some of the sequences. But Karan Grewal, one of his roommates, said the background in one of them looked like their flat. He was surprised at the different personality the normally silent and reclusive Cho presented to television: "It was a totally different person. He was staring straight at the camera, and he never stared into our eyes or even looked at us."

The police, who had trouble confirming the identities of all of the victims, finally released a full list yesterday.

The university said the murdered students would receive posthumous degrees. Classes are to resume on Monday. Although a university official warned against "the seductive desire to blame", the police and university staff faced renewed questioning as to how someone who had spent time in a mental hospital had been allowed to return to the campus and to buy guns.

The owner of one of the shops where Cho bought a gun said yesterday he had received hate mail and threats to his life.

How NBC got the tape

Even before it was opened, the oversized letter from Cho Seung-hui to NBC News attracted attention. The postal worker who brought it to NBC's Manhattan headquarters on Wednesday pointed out the return address of Blacksburg, Virginia.

Inside was what NBC anchor Brian Williams described as a multimedia manifesto, with video, pictures and writing from the murderer of 32 people just before he went on his killing spree at Virginia Tech. Cho mailed it at 9.01am on Monday, between murders.

The package was incorrectly addressed, delaying its arrival. NBC security opened the envelope. They handled it with gloved hands, and made copies of what they found. At noon, Steve Capus, president of NBC News, was told what had been delivered. "At first I wondered if it was real, but when you look at it and see all the pictures you realise that it is," he said.

The package contained a DVD, 23 pages of profane messages and 29 pictures of the killer. Eleven showed him aiming a gun at the camera. One showed 30 hollow-point bullets, with the message: "All the shit you gave me right back at you with hollow points." The FBI got the originals from NBC, which was asked not to say anything publicly until investigators had examined the evidence.

The first public word was not released until a news conference in Blacksburg at about 4.30pm.

David Bauder