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VOLUME 115, ISSUE 34 Campus copes as details come in BY ERIN FRANCE AND ERIC JOHNSON SENIOR WRITERS BLACKSBURG, Va. - A steady stream of breaking news added to the tension on Virginia Tech’s cam pus Wednesday following the Monday deaths of 33 students and faculty. An afternoon press confer ence revealed that NBC News received a pack age containing what network INSIDE Students abroad see foreigners blame gun laws for the tragedy. Local high school students react to Va. Tech shootings. PAGE 11 officials described as a “multimedia manifesto” from Cho Seung-Hui, the student definitively identified as the gunman in one of two shoot ings Monday. ww*™ . i Lyr ? • /m ||jC; $ I I Hf I 'MV' j; jr w mfjm ' .XV- V- Kg :—... /., -;.... -JuMHHi DTH/ABBY KEIPER Charlene Lee, who has bipolar disorder, is a client of Club Nova. “This is getting me prepared to go into the work area," Lee said. “I have no insurance. Other than my job, I have no other income." Lee said Club Nova helped her secure an apartment and leave a homeless shelter. SEARCHING FOR SUPPORT BY BRENDAN BROWN ASSISTANT STATE & NATIONAL EDITOR For most of her life, Charlene Lee has been unable to hold a steady job because of her dras tic mood swings. “I can go from being perfectly normal, to cussing at you, to feeling so guilty about it a minute later that I’m crying,” she said. “When I face my day, I don’t know if I’m going to be adult Charlene or child Charlene.” Lee, 39, has been troubled since childhood by her genetic bipolar disor der. She has attempted sui cide several times by over dosing on her prescribed medication, she said. The most recent attempt, she said, came in April 2006 and led to more than two FRIDAY The Raleigh community reacts to the closing of Dorothea Dix. weeks of intensive care at UNC Neuroscience Hospital. For months after her release, Lee was jobless and homeless, staying at a women’s shelter in Chapel Hill from October until the end of the year. Since January, she has received daily help and comfort from Club Nova in Carrboro. The club is one of roughly 1,000 community support providers statewide that aid those leav ing or awaiting intensive care to navigate the mental health system and integrate into the community by helping them build social skills, online I daih tarheel.com NO DROP ZONE State leaders discuss a plan to raise high-school graduation rates FRIENDLY ADVICE A UNC professor flies an amicus brief in a post-Sept. 11 case THINKING GREEN Speaker talks about global warming during Earth Day festivities Serving the students and the University community since 1893 31ir latlg ®ar Heel “Upon reception of this corre spondence, NBC News immedi ately notified authorities,” Virginia State Police Superintendent Col. Steven Flaherty said. “This may be a very new, critical component of this investigation.” Authorities still were evaluating the materials Wednesday night, even as NBC began to release images and videos taken by Cho. Students gasped and whispered “Oh my god” as television screens flashed an image of Cho posing menacingly with two handguns raised at eye level. The videos portray the intense anger of an individual whose exact motives still are unclear. Cho assigned blame for the massacre to his victims, claiming that he “died like Jesus Christ, to inspire generations of weak and defense find housing or take their medicine. But an abrupt decision two weeks ago by state officials to cut the hourly Medicaid bill ing rate for such services by a third sent shock waves through a mental health system that has undergone radical change since 2001. Those reforms have focused on providing proven treatment techniques and privatizing and localizing services moving away from state-run facilities. The announcement, which came after an investigation suggesting that some providers were misusing fbnds, threatens to reduce the quality and quantity of services, advocates say. Brad Dean, spokesman for the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services, which includes the mental health division, said a group of 20 local providers and mental health officials will suggest anew temporary Medicaid rate today. But community support providers already are struggling to stay afloat financially. Lee said she was assigned a community support worker in January through one of the many providers that, like Club Nova, used to be run by a state agency before being privatized. But she said die company told her two weeks ago that the worker was taking a job elsewhere, leaving her without those services for an indefi nite amount of time. Along with one in 20 state residents who need mental health care, she has been affected dive | page 5 SIGNALING A PARTY The Southeast Electronic Music Festival will return to Chapel Hill next weekend bigger than ever with house, techno and many other genres set to be featured. www.daiXytarheel.com less people.” He called his victims “snobs” and suggested the source of his rage was the privilege and materialism that he saw in his classmates. “Your trust funds wasn’t enough,” he said, sitting in front of a plain cinder-block wall and appearing to read from a script. “Your vodka and cognac wasn’t enough. All your debaucheries weren’t enough.” The release of the video capped an already uneasy day. Even two days after the shootings, and with a dwindling number of students on campus, the community remained on edge. Early in the day, a swarm of police and media descended on Burruss Hall after a Va. Tech oper ator received a threat on univer sity President Charles Steger’s life. The building was secured by police most by the system’s growing pains. “That’s the story of my life,” Lee said. “One thing gets fixed, and then something else comes apart.” Fragmented system Club Nova used to be operated by the Local Management Entity for Orange, Person and Chatham counties. Last year, as part of the state’s ongoing efforts to divest from the government-run LMEs in favor of local community support services, Club Nova became a private nonprofit responsible for Medicaid billing, paying employees and various other services once taken care of by the LME. Though the LMEs still monitor and distrib ute funds to the providers in their area, the services no longer are under their direct con trol and are fragmented between groups that provide services from crisis management and hospitalization to community support. “Our system really needs coordination to make it work,” said Judy TVuitt, director ofthe LME for Orange, Person and Chatham counties. The local LME, which serves roughly 5,000 mental health, developmental disability and substance abuse patients, stopped directing most local services in May 2006. The complexities ofthe system make it difficult SEE MENTAL HEALTH, PAGE 12 E2J : 1 I r ' s and a report of a suspicious per son came in amid the confusion, said campus police Chief Wendell Flinchum. “These kinds of reports are not uncommon in the wake of what has occurred in the last 48 hours,” he said, alluding to the vigilant mood in Blacksburg. The last two days have left inves tigators, reporters and students scrambling to understand an event that left friends, family and com munity members dead. There is growing frustration at the news that Cho had an extensive history of psychological instability, including a recommendation of involuntary hospitalization dating back to 2005. Campus police were contacted SEE VA. TECH, PAGE 12 arts | page 15 'ENTERTAIN ME' Inspired by students, senior Tiffany Okafor wrote a one-act play examining hip-hop culture that opens tonight at the Stone Center. DTH/TIMOTHY REESE Va. Tech sophomore Chris Maupin plays catch Tuesday outside Ambler Johnston Residence Hall. “It was kinda something to do," Maupin said. Universities mull privacy BY ERIN FRANCE AND ERIC JOHNSON SENIOR WRITERS BLACKSBURG, Va. - The rev elation that Virginia Tech shooter Cho Seung-Hui had a documented history of psy chological prob lems is likely to intensify an already heated debate about how campuses handle troubled students. A number of high-profile court cases in recent years have centered on the con straints and M jjjy(s jHHj Cho Seung- Hui showed signs of mental illness before the shootings. responsibilities university officials confront in deciding whether to take pre-emptive action on behalf of at-risk students. Christopher Flynn, director of the Cook Counseling Center at Virginia Tech, alluded to that dif ficulty in discussing Cho’s history of strange behavior. “There are lots of issues that are present on a college campus,” UNC unsure how lead got into water BY SERGIO TOVAR STAFF WRITER Lead levels exceeding national regulations found in the water systems of Chapman Hall and Caudill Labs have sent University officials and students looking for answers. Officials have not yet deter mined the source of the lead in the water supply or the exact amount of lead in the drinking water, which can cause everything from headaches and irritability to problems in the nervous and the gastrointestinal systems. “Right now we’re just in the pro cess of getting some advice,” said Carolyn Elfland, associate vice chancellor for campus services, adding that officials have consulted experts to create a plan of action. Information about the lead found in the water has been pro vided via e-mail to faculty mem bers who work in the affected buildings, but some question why the entire campus community wasn’t notified. Ray Hackney, UNC environ ment, health and safety director, said he didn’t see a need to tell this day in history APRIL 19,1967 ... UNC's No. 1 tennis player, Bitsy Harrison, is declared disqualified for play by the NCAA on the grounds that his years of eligibility expired. THURSDAY, APRIL 19, 2007 Flynn said during a Wednesday press conference. “The extent to which we can make a judgment about whether someone is a dan ger is a separate issue.” For universities, it is an issue fraught with moral and legal complications. Officials have to balance concern for campus safety with an obligation to protect indi vidual privacy, often with vague guidelines. “Schools walk a real fine line,” said Johnne Armentrout, assis tant director of counseling ser vices at Wake Forest University. “The tricky thing is that they face lawsuits on both sides, either from not doing enough or from violat ing their students’ privacy rights.” Federal law prohibits universities from revealing a student’s psycho logical problems, even to parents, unless they have a signed waiver or believe the student poses an immi nent danger to himself or others. Deciding when to break that confidentiality is difficult, but uni versities typically have erred on the side of protecting student privacy. In recent cases, universities have SEE PRIVACY, PAGE 12 I fey 8 H !^’-i i -l,| \ DTH/DANIEI BAND A sign posted above a water fountain in Chapman Hall informs students and staff that lead has been found in the water systems. everyone about the problem. “We don’t feel like the whole campus is at risk, and we have signs up in the buildings informing peo ple not to drink the water,” he said. Luanne Williams, a toxicolo gist with the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services, said SEE LEAD WATER, PAGE 12 weather dfeV Rainy H 62 L 45 index police log 2 calendar 2 games 10 sports 13 opinion 16
Daily Tar Heel (Chapel Hill, N.C.)
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April 19, 2007, edition 1
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