Shooter’s Family Sought Better Life In U.S.
Posted April 18, 2007 12:00 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
The family of Virginia Tech gunman Cho Seung-Hui moved to the United States with dreams of a better life, a South Korean newspaper reported Wednesday.
Cho, a 23-year-old senior enrolled in the school’s English department, was named by police as the only suspect in the deadliest shooting rampage in U.S. history. In all 33 people died including the shooter in two separate incidents two hours apart on the campus.
Virginia Tech students and loved ones of victims held a candlelight vigil at the school Tuesday night. Classes have been cancelled for the rest of the week.
A story in the newspaper Chosun Ilbo suggested that Cho’s family was poor and living in a suburb of Seoul when they decided to move to North America. The article identified his father as 61-year-old Cho Seong-Tae.
“I didn’t know what (Cho’s father) did for a living. But they lived a poor life,” said Lim Bong-Ae, who reportedly rented a basement apartment to the family. “While emigrating, (Cho’s father) said they were going to America because it is difficult to live here and that it’s better to live in a place where he is unknown.”
According to the South Korean Foreign Ministry Cho had been living in the U.S. since 1992 as a resident alien based in Centreville, Va. While attending school at Virginia Tech he lived in a residence on campus. School spokesperson Larry Hincker described the student as a “loner.”
School records from Cho’s elementary school in South Korea, Shinchang, indicate he was a student there until the middle of his second-grade year. The only other record suggests he left school in August of 1992. Teachers at the school didn’t remember him.
South Korean President Roh Moo-Hyun continued to offer apologies for the young man’s actions as fear spread that the shooting spree would trigger racially-motivated attacks.
“I and our people cannot contain our feelings of huge shock and grief,” Roh said during a joint news conference with Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi. “I pray for the souls of those killed and offer words of comfort from my heart for those injured, the bereaved families and the U.S. people.”
According to statistics South Korea has more students studying in the U.S. than any other country, with more than 90,000 being schooled in the country as of late 2006. That compares to 76,708 Indian students in the country and 60,850 Chinese students.
