Do you think that virginia Tech killer Cho Seu was an Aspie?

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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070417/ap_ ... h_shooting

Va. Tech gunman writings raised concerns

"He was a loner, and we're having difficulty finding information about him," school spokesman Larry Hincker said.

News reports also said that he may have been taking medication for depression, that he was becoming increasingly violent and erratic, and that he left a note in his dorm in which he railed against "rich kids," "debauchery" and "deceitful charlatans" on campus.

Meanwhile, a chilling portrait of the gunman as a misfit began to emerge.

Professor Carolyn Rude, chairwoman of the university's English department, said she did not know Cho. But she said she spoke with Lucinda Roy, the department's director of creative writing, who had Cho in one of her classes and described him as "troubled."


The professor looked at the sign-in sheet and, where everyone else had written their names, Cho had written a question mark. "Is your name, `Question mark?'" classmate Julie Poole recalled the professor asking. The young man offered little response.

Cho spent much of that class sitting in the back of the room, wearing a hat and seldom participating. In a small department, Cho distinguished himself for being anonymous. "He didn't reach out to anyone. He never talked," Poole said.

"We just really knew him as the question mark kid," Poole said.

Just be glad they didn't mention the condition. I keep hearing complaints about how aspies kill and it gets mentioned in the articles because they are concerned we are being protrayed as killers.

give it some time.

People with no known or specific disability/diagnosis go and kill people everyday. It does, however, give a bad rap to whatever group the killer is associated with.

1) I don't think we have nearly enough information about the guy
2)there are so many belated symptoms, it could be anything
3)Many crimes like this are blamed on "loner" stereotypes, which is silly. Loner, you might as well blame it on being Korean, or too smart, or too young or too cold. Loner covers a huge range.

It's too soon to tell... he could have been a sociopath or had an aggressive to reaction to psychiatric meds (some SSRIs are linked to violent outbursts, including homicide and suicide, in the first few months of being on them). I do think some people involved with school shootings were aspie, so I am open to the idea.

He has many cultural differences too. I'm sure he was under a lot of pressure by his family to make excellent grades. There is also the concept of "face." How many times did he lose face on that campus? Why was he studying English? Too many unanswered questions to jump to the conclusion of AS.

No definitely not. I really HATE it when they 'He was a loner'. I used to be a loner and i never did that sort of thing. You could say I could be any number of things, even if he did have AS it wouldn't be caused by the AS I don't believe. Serious personality disorders look very similar to thing like SA and AS on the surface but are in fact very different.

You know, I keep hearing that people who do this sort of thing are loners and bullied by others. But a couple of weeks ago, I saw something on TV about the Colombine shootings (hmmm, I wonder if Cho saw it too), where they refuted the idea that Harris and Klebold were either of these things. Apparently, one of them (I can't remember which) was actually popular with the girls and had numerous dates. They were also part of the regular high school social scene.

Anyway, I hate it when people make assumptions. Maybe these people are loners because they're psychotic, rather than driven crazy by their solitude. You have to really look at some of the ideas people come up with; maybe it was because he drank the water at the dorm, or because he wore a leather jacket, or had Cheetos the week before! Didn't they find that Charles Whitman (Texas U. clock tower shooting) had a brain tumor? Maybe Cho was an Aspie, but that doesn't account for his behavior anymore than his being a Korean does!

So far the only thing that makes me think he may have aspie was that he turned away from people to avoid eye contact-- assuming the person saying that is telling the truth. Lotsof people are"loners," not just aspies.

I'm sure there was huge cultural pressure on him to do well in school. Children of immigrants have huge pressures-- the pressure is like a vice grip to do well in school, be successful, blah blah blah. Apparently he told people he was a business major when he was actually an english major. Maybe his parents didn't even know he wasn't a business major.

What the guy who sold the gun to Cho said, stood out to me. I read a book called "The Gift of Fear," by Gavin DeBecker, which is an excellent book, by the way, and he pointed out how things like this happen, because of making assumptions about people. The gun dealer said that Cho was a "Clean cut, college kid," or else he would have had reservations about selling him the gun. So if Cho had been a grungy, disheveled college kid, no gun? DeBecker sites instances where a person's appearance is always used to determine if they are a threat. A well dressed executive could commit a crime as easily as bedraggled homeless person. Just a thought.

Eye contact is a problem with lot of different things. The problem with AS is unique (well for me anyway). It is not about people think about me or any kind of thoughts. It is/was physically difficult to look in the eyes. I think there is a term for it. Anyway he sound like he fits (given the little data) a sociopath.

Interestingly Hitler lied about going to art school but he didn't get in. He used to pretend to his family he was going when he was bum about town

my friends and i noticed a lot more police officers patrolling our school today...

Asperger's is DEFINITELY not the only condition that would cause this, and in all honesty, I doubt Asperger's even comes to mind for anybody. People here are thinking of it because it applies to them, but in reality he is more likely to be thought of as having Antisocial Personality Disorder (or "sociopath"). Or more likely he's just warped in too many ways to even be given one "label". But really, this has nothing to do with Asperger's and I doubt ANYBODY, ESPECIALLY NTs will even think of Autism/Aspergers, since I know before I had the first clue what Autism was like I thought it was just being a really smart "ret*d". We need to get outside of ourselves a little bit since AS being given a bad rep isn't really a concern in this instance.

Some of you guys are UNREAL! Do I think he is ASPIE? ****NOPE****! WHY????

1. PREMEDITATED and illogical!
2. NO evidence given for him being an ASPIE, other than symptoms TYPICAL of a sociopath!
3. BTW his statements where NOT legit. He was a HYPOCRITE!

HECK, just MOMENTS before seeing details about this, a show ended. The sign off said:

40 ACRES and a MULE production
AT ANY COST!
YOU DIG?
SHOR ENUFF!

ILLOGICAL, but run it through the rumor mill, and a jive translator, and it becomes:

we were promised 40 ACRES AND A MULE, fight for it AT ANY COST! You understand? THAT'S RIGHT, ANY COST!

So should we say THEY are ASPIE too? What of other militants?

BTW Last I knew, it was *******ILLEGAL******** to sell a glock like that! The gun dealer BROKE THE LAW!

He was probably under stress, depressed, etc... and just wanted to get rid of people he hated, and probably succumb by "suicide by police".

Steve

What is real does not matter - it is what will be marketed to the public by the media. And they will have "experts" who will most likely know knowing about AS except for stereotypes but want to hype the public. Don't forget it is autism awareness month. That might generate conversation.