As the Virginia panel investigating the Virginia Tech massacre prepares to issue its final report, survivors and victims’ families say questions about the commission’s integrity threaten to undermine its credibility, USA Today reports. They include complaints that family members were denied a representative on the eight-member review board to fears about conflicting interests between the state-appointed commission and the state-supported university. Families also have expressed unhappiness about the university’s plan to distribute $7.1 million to victims’ relatives from a fund created after the assault by student gunman Seung Hui Cho killed 32 students and faculty members. Cho took his own life.
On Wednesday, the university said it will give the money to victims’ relatives and survivors through a formula that offers $180,000 to the families of those killed and up to $90,000 to the 27 people who were wounded. A spokesman for families said that most learned about the plan from news media accounts, and some felt pressured by a 30-day deadline for deciding whether to accept the aid.
Link: http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-08-16-vatechreport_N.htm