Va. Tech families demand voice on panel

[Kerrytravelers]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070611/ap_on_re_us/virginia_tech_investigation

Va. Tech families demand voice on panel

"We are angry about being ostracized from a government-chartered panel investigating a government-sponsored university, and about how the university has used the names and images of our loved ones to raise millions of dollars without any consultation," the families said in a statement to be presented to the review board Monday during its third public meeting.

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Gov. Timothy M. Kaine appointed the eight-member panel, which includes former Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge, psychiatrists, educational specialists and former law enforcement officials, to review the tragedy, the circumstances that led to it and the response.

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"Family is important to us. It's also important, I think, to the governor that he have a panel that was viewed as being totally objective and not driven by emotions," said Massengill, a former Virginia State Police superintendent who oversaw the agency's response to the Sept. 11 attack on the Pentagon and the 2002 Washington-area sniper attacks.


Please read the entire short article at the link before commenting. The families are angry at two separate things. They wanted on the panel and they have concerns about the memorial funds. The panel and the memorial fund are under the direction of two separate forces.

Personally, while I understand their grieving, I believe the point of the panel is take an objective view of what happened. I would think the focus would be more on the actions of the gunman, what steps could have stopped him or what steps need to be created to stop other future gunmen. I also think they would focus on security and what went wrong and how to work better next time. I'm not thinking they will be focusing on the victims at all. So, I'm not sure this particular panel is one that would need victim input- maybe victim reaction, but not necessarily victim input. Perhaps another panel dealing with the emotional issues and how to properly deal with them.

Anyway, I wasn't sure this warrented LBN. I did a search and didn't find any other thread with this subject.