Cho Family Statement

The follwoing is a statement issued by Sun-Kyung Cho, sister of Seung-Hui Cho, on behalf of herself and her family on April 20, 2007.

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On behalf of our family, we are so deeply sorry for the devastation my brother has caused. No words can express our sadness that 32 innocent people lost their lives this week in such a terrible, senseless tragedy.

We are heartbroken.

We grieve alongside the families, the Virginia Tech community, our State of Virginia, and the rest of the nation. And, the world.

Every day since April 16, my father, mother and I pray for students Ross Abdallah Alameddine, Brian Roy Bluhm, Ryan Christopher Clark, Austin Michelle Cloyd, Matthew Gregory Gwaltney, Caitlin Millar Hammaren, Jeremy Michael Herbstritt, Rachael Elizabeth Hill, Emily Jane Hilscher, Jarrett Lee Lane, Matthew Joseph La Porte, Henry J. Lee, Partahi Mamora Halomoan Lumbantoruan, Lauren Ashley McCain, Daniel Patrick O'Neil, J. Ortiz-Ortiz, Minal Hiralal Panchal, Daniel Alejandro Perez, Erin Nicole Peterson, Michael Steven Pohle, Jr., Julia Kathleen Pryde, Mary Karen Read, Reema Joseph Samaha, Waleed Mohamed Shaalan, Leslie Geraldine Sherman, Maxine Shelly Turner, Nicole White, Instructor Christopher James Bishop, and Professors Jocelyne Couture-Nowak, Kevin P. Granata, Liviu Librescu and G.V. Loganathan.

We pray for their families and loved ones who are experiencing so much excruciating grief. And we pray for those who were injured and for those whose lives are changed forever because of what they witnessed and experienced.

Each of these people had so much love, talent and gifts to offer, and their lives were cut short by a horrible and senseless act.

We are humbled by this darkness. We feel hopeless, helpless and lost. This is someone that I grew up with and loved. Now I feel like I didn't know this person.

We have always been a close, peaceful and loving family. My brother was quiet and reserved, yet struggled to fit in. We never could have envisioned that he was capable of so much violence.

He has made the world weep. We are living a nightmare.

There is much justified anger and disbelief at what my brother did, and a lot of questions are left unanswered. Our family will continue to cooperate fully and do whatever we can to help authorities understand why these senseless acts happened. We have many unanswered questions as well.

Our family is so very sorry for my brother's unspeakable actions. It is a terrible tragedy for all of us.

[jsears334]

I can't imagine what the family of Cho is going thru and as I have said in previous comments, not only do the people of Virginia and VT Tech and the students,families,friends,of this senseless shooting, this family will have to bear the burden of this person actions and walk the earth knowing what they are responsible for.

My prayers go out this family and all who have come in direct or indirect contact with this malious and mallace act.
May the Lord be with them all.

[wama2]

whoever sold two guns to a student that lived in a school campus's to blame. But I also pray for the families that had a connection in this- all victims!! GOd Bless!!!

[usawoman]

I hope that nothing bad happens to Cho's beloved family. I hear in my city a lot of threats and "if this was my murdered child I would ..." and online I read a lot of "give us a group hug we feel for the you" toward his family. My view is that I know it is difficult to come before a nation and the sister did so with a lot of bravery. They seem very genuine and we must remember that although they brought him to us; they did not know this would be a result. Unless the family has a dark past or contributed in mental or physical abuse that caused him to react to society like this than they are as innocent as we are.

[wjshaheen]

Your family was as much a part of this tragedy as all of us, your loss just as painful. You have our sympathy and we pray that over time you can heal. God bless.

[amma2007]

My concern is that people like frb01, who posted above, will attribute this crime to the shooter's ethnicity or nationality. It has nothing to do with whether or not his family "learned the language well enough" or whether he "had difficulties communicating." It has nothing to do with being an immigrant family. It has more to do with mental illness, being the victim of school bullying, and not fitting into even his own family. I pray for the Cho family, all the families who lost loved ones in this massacre, as well as Asians/Asian Americans who presently are at risk of unfairly being targeted by many who insist on seeing this as an issue regarding Asian immigration.

[davehs23]

Without turning this board into a forum on theology or soteriology, a great salvation message can be found in these verses, in one interpretation of them, and or as one very blessedly of eternal assurance and grace.

In dedication to the Cho family and then to all the families of those who lost their lives on Monday and the Korean community at large as well:

Those who sow in tears shall reap in joy. He who continually goes forth weeping, bearing seed for sowing, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him.
(Psalm 126:5,6 NKJV)

[davehs23]

Sun Kyung has proven herself yet again, in reaching out to all of us with the grief her family feels. I've known people in a situation of a suicide before who did not see it coming, or potentially what other violence has come with it.
This is not only an immense tragedy for all of us and especially the victims' families at Virginia Tech, but for this Korean family as well.

Join me in the hope that the Cho family will even better than perhaps they knew how before endear themselves to those of us, among people who were born here and whose parents were born here as Americans.

It is my fear that some copycat will learn from the example of Sueng-Hui too and that some attacks in our schools will be worse for it in the coming months and years ahead. This is a very realistic fear, until we can find some way
of not so much getting around such a dysfunctional law like the ADA, but of our reaching out to those who are troubled in our midst, and also of making the effort to get the excessive violence off our television and internet screens at home. It is too much to pay for these kind of freedoms for our young people, to lose more young and promising lives, such as happened on Monday.


I encourage my friends at church this Sunday to pray for the Cho family as well as the rest who have suffered so much, and I hope that many more Americans will do the same.

[frb01]

We will probably never know where things went wrong. This family came to the US for a better life, much like the Neil Diamond song America. And maybe they did not learn the language well enough, and had a son who may have had difficulties in communicating and obviously was very sick. I can't imagine the burden they bear now and will for every day of their remaining lives. I pray for the victims and for this family.

[smilenawink]

Such pain...I hope every family involved in this tragedy, the Cho family as well as the families of all the victims, will be able to move on and live with as little scarring as possible....

[jt92202]

I cannot imagine the pain this family must be in along with the other 32 families, injured victims and families of VT. All of them are victims of this mentally sick young man and my prayers are with them all.