US:The panel appointed by the governor of Virginia to investigate the massacre at Virginia Tech is critical of the university's response to the shootings and its treatment of killer Seung Hui Cho, concluding that lives could have been saved if officials had issued an alert sooner that a gunman was on campus, write Sari Horwitzand Tim Craig.
The eight-member panel also found that Cho went to the campus counselling centre after he was ordered to do so by a judge in 2005 but that the centre failed to treat him. The panel's report also says the centre was passive in its follow-up and is missing important records about Cho's visit.
For many relatives of victims, the criticism of the university's actions after Cho shot two students in a dormitory early on April 16th last was most telling.
The report says campus police should have immediately requested that students and faculty be warned after those shootings.
About two hours after the dorm shooting, Cho killed 30 more people and himself at an academic building.
Still, family members said, the report does not assert that Virginia Tech officials should have locked down the campus, and it specifically concludes that doing so could not have stopped the rampage.
"It's hard to believe anybody could read that report and not find that people should be held accountable for the many, many mistakes that were identified," said one of the family members briefed on the report's findings.
"This is kind of like the first week all over again. The focus is going to shift back to Cho and all his many problems. We hope the people reading the report will read it and remember all the victims and the good they were doing and good they are still doing."
In all, the panel reached 21 conclusions in its report.
Despite the criticism, Democratic governor Timothy Kaine said that neither Virginia Tech's president nor its police chief should lose their jobs because of the findings of the panel.
The problems the panel identified "would not be solved" by replacing them,Mr Kaine said.
The panel found that Cho showed signs of mental health problems from childhood and was treated by both counselling and medication at different times through high school. In 1999, after the shootings at Columbine High School, Cho started to write about suicide and homicide, the panel concluded.
When he was preparing to go to college, his family and high school guidance counsellors advised him against attending Virginia Tech because they feared that it was too big a university and was not the right environment for him.
The help Cho received in middle school and high school did not continue when he went to Virginia Tech because the university was not made aware of his mental health problems, the panel found.
Celeste Peterson, whose daughter Erin was among those killed, called the report "hard-hitting".
She said she found it disturbing that university president Charles Steger had been allowed to stay in office.
The panel seemed to have done an "exceptional job" in reviewing all aspects of what was done and what officials failed to do. Still, she said, the report could not ease her loss. "I'm never going to be all right," she said. "I want them to picture me holding my dead child in front of them and do the right thing."
The report points to several warnings about Cho's mental state over his years at Virginia Tech and a "failure to connect the dots", one parent said. Although some of his professors discussed Cho's problems, Virginia Tech officials failed to communicate among themselves because of their perception of state and federal privacy laws. The panel concluded that the officials interpreted the laws to be more restrictive than they are.
The report cites a major breakdown in communication and treatment in 2005 after a judge ordered Cho to receive outpatient care. That order occurred after female students complained that Cho was stalking them. He became suicidal after police interviewed him about the stalking, according to court records.
A judge ordered Cho to go to the university's Cook Counselling Centre, but healthcare professionals there never treated him.
The panel also concluded that Virginia's system of treating the mentally ill was flawed, particularly when it came to involuntary commitment.
In Cho's case, the report highlights poor communication among the university, healthcare professionals and the legal system.
The panel also found that that on the day of the shooting, the search for suspects by campus police was too narrow, focusing incorrectly on the boyfriend of one of the first two victims.
Police also made a mistake in concluding that the gunman was probably no longer on campus.
Since May the panel has held four public hearings, reviewed thousands of pages of documents and conducted dozens of interviews with first responders, Virginia Tech administrators and counsellors, and people who knew Cho.
The report focuses on several topics, including the university's actions, Cho's mental health history and the sharing of information among state and local agencies and colleges about troubled teens such as Cho.
Among the panel's key findings is that Cho had a fascination with the 1999 shootings at Columbine High School in Colorado but that Virginia Tech did not have all of the information.
"I am troubled that a student who had talked about Columbine at an earlier point in his life, that information was not known to anyone on the Tech campus," Mr Kaine said.
"I think there are a lot of instances of where information was out there or different people had information that was out there, and I think that will be a significant feature of the report."
Although the report identifies other factors in Cho's life that might have contributed to his instability, sources said some of his violent writings can be traced to Columbine.
"Cho, who had few friends and a limited social life, easily sympathised with Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, the Columbine shooters," the sources said. Cho referred to "Eric" and "Dylan" in a manifesto that investigators found in his room after the shootings at Virginia Tech.
The panel, which included former US homeland security secretary Tom Ridge and was chaired by former state police superintendent W Gerald Massengill, was backed by a team of investigators who fanned out across the country to gather information related to the massacre - the deadliest shooting rampage by an individual in US history - in which Cho killed 32 people and himself.
The panel, according to sources familiar with the report, also explored the legal barriers that prevented Fairfax County officials from telling Virginia Tech about an anxiety disorder that Cho suffered in high school.
The condition, known as selective mutism, made Cho unable to speak in social settings.
Fairfax County officials developed a treatment plan for him, which sources described as "apparently effective".
But federal privacy and disability laws prohibit high schools from sharing with colleges private information such as a student's special education coding or disability.
"The real issue is my child is dead," Ms Peterson said.
"No matter what they do, there is no help. I'm still desperately lonely."