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Glenn Beck

Many Questions Unanswered in Virginia Tech Tragedy

Aired April 18, 2007 - 19:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
GLENN BECK, HOST (voice-over): Tonight, who was the killer?

JOHN, CHO SEUNG-HUI`S SUITE MATE: He didn`t know anyone.

BECK: We`ll take a look at the killer`s past, the warning signs, the bizarre writings and what, if anything, could have been done to stop him.

Also, all the newest information on the victims, the survivors and the growing outcry over how the university handled the shooting.

Plus, a profile in courage, the Virginia Tech professor who sacrificed his own life to save his students.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He`s a hero at a level which I didn`t even think my father could be.

BECK: What turns an ordinary man into a hero?

Tonight, honest questions about the Virginia Tech tragedy.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BECK: Well, hello. I`ve been gone for a couple of days. I was in the heartland of America in a little teeny town in Idaho. And because of that, I think I may have a different take on the massacre at Virginia Tech than everybody else in the media.

I`ve been watching this horrible unfold on television, and I keep hearing over and over again, "The school`s to blame. Look how easy it was for him to get a gun."

And then I see the teary-eyed anchors and the reporters as they talk and spew out platitudes, and they`re not really even talking about what I believe are the real issues. So here`s the point tonight.

Let`s start on this one. You want gun control? Great. How about no guns until you`re a citizen? End of story. Here`s how I got there.

For years, this country has been debating over who`s got the right to bear arms. Well, you know what? Let`s start here. You want to own a gun in this country? Become a citizen first. Actually, it seems like common sense gun control.

You want to take the weapons off the streets? Hey, how about we start with people who aren`t citizens?

Now, with that being said, it still wouldn`t have prevented this tragedy for two reasons. One, the campus was a gun-free zone. The only kid who had a gun was the killer. Everybody else was obeying the law. What a surprise.

Two, even if he couldn`t get a gun, you don`t think this guy would have grabbed a knife? You don`t think he could have created a bomb or grabbed a chainsaw? Once a crazy person decides they want to kill a bunch of people, they`re not going to stop until they succeed.

And as more and more details are revealed about this Virginia Tech killer, they all point to a kid that was a huge mess. Here`s what police had to say about him today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CAPT. WENDELL FLINCHUM, VIRGINIA TECH POLICE CHIEF: Officers again met with Cho and talked with him at length. Out of concern for Cho, officers asked him to speak to a counselor. He went voluntarily to the police department.

Based on that interaction with the counselor, a temporary detention order was obtained, and Cho was taken to a mental health facility.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BECK: Let`s not let this guy have a gun, just based on that.

The warning signs were all there. The head of the English department at Virginia Tech, Professor Lucinda Roy, was so disturbed by the writings of this kid, that when she got wind of some of the creepy things he was writing, she called the campus police, counseling center, the office of student affairs. She begged them, "Please, take this kid out of class."

What did they do? Nothing. Why? It`s free speech, they said. Free speech.

I told you a while back, political correctness is going to be the death of us. Well, here it is. Here`s a guy who`s a total freak show, and a stalker. But we couldn`t do anything about it. Why? Freedom of speech. Can`t do a darn thing because the guy has rights.

Meanwhile, we can`t arm the students. We can`t let professors carry a weapon. Nobody on campus can have a gun, because it`s a gun-free zone.

You know what? Everybody talks about rights. Well, maybe it`s about time somebody talks about defending your right to live.

Here`s what I know tonight. Our kids are sitting ducks, and gun control or tougher security at the college is not going to change that. The sickness is in the system itself. It`s time for a little reality gut check, America.

Maybe I`ll be the first on television to ask this. Do you really think the average person watching the news was as upset as the media says we are? I think the answer`s no. We`re changing as a society to the point where life and death are becoming more and more insignificant to all of us.

Here`s what I don`t know. Besides changing our families, how else do you prevent a tragedy like this from happening? Even when the writing is on the wall, without society turning into a movie like the "Minority Report".

Joining me now is criminologist Jeffrey Ian Ross; and Bill Bastone from the SmokingGun.com. This is the web site that first published one of the really frightening plays written by the killer.

Bill, let`s start there. When was this play written and what was it written for?

BILL BASTONE, SMOKINGGUN.COM: He wrote it for a short story class that he was enrolled in last year in the first semester at Virginia Tech. It was one of a couple that he wrote. We obtained it from a student who was in the class with him.

It was a class where everyone shared with every other student the plays, or short stories that they wrote. Our source had it.

And actually, within hours of the shooting taking place, we found this guy via kind of a Post-it he made in an online forum before the kid was identified, before anything talked about that he was an English student, this kid posted it and said, "I had a kid -- there was an Asian student that I was in an English class with who wrote these insane stories. And I`m wondering whether it was the kid."

And a day later it turns out it was the kid.

BECK: All right. So give me just the highlights of what you can discuss on the air.

BASTONE: Sure. It`s essentially a one-act play with three characters. A 13-year-old boy, his mother, and his stepfather. And it`s really -- it`s almost kind of like Shakespeare reinterpreted by someone with no talent, essentially.

And it`s basically a kid hates the stepfather, claims the stepfather is a pedophile, tells this to the mother. The mother tries to attack the stepfather, throws tools, plates, tries to kill him with a chainsaw.

BECK: OK.

BASTONE: The kid then assaults the stepfather and the play ends with the stepfather killing the 13-year-old boy.

BECK: OK. Jeff, tell you anything? I mean, if it tells you something, maybe we should be watching Quentin Tarantino, as well. I mean, does it tell you anything?

JEFFREY IAN ROSS, CRIMINOLOGIST: I don`t think you can really generalize from one piece of writing from the shooter here. I read the play. The themes of pedophilia, a father who is killed by a possible suspect being the father, the stepfather, and issues about being honest in relationships, these are not unusual.

In fact, I mean, we see this all the time in a lot of the kind of drama, Hollywood movies that are the standard fare in most movie theaters across America now.

So to read a lot into this one piece of writing, I think is not appropriate. To then project some sort of personality profile, or some sort of, you know, sign post along the road...

BECK: So if you were an English teacher and you got this, I mean, I`ve read Edgar Allen Poe, one of my favorite authors. The guy was a freak when it comes to stuff like this. If you got this and you`re an English professor, set off any warning bells to you?

ROSS: Well, No. 1, I`m not an English professor...

BECK: No, if you were. If you were.

ROSS: I would think it`s kind of sophomoric, to be honest with you. I don`t think it has enough detail. There`s a lot of things -- the characters, the three characters there are caricatures. There`s a number of issues connected to the setting that are unrealistic.

And so it sounds like a mishmash of something perhaps the writer has - - well, he may have experienced it. He may know somebody who`s experienced this, or simply it`s conjecture or a -- contributions of different people and scenes that he`s seen in Hollywood movies, or even from violent video games. There`s nothing really unique about this kind of writing.

BECK: Bill, you say there`s more to come. You have -- you have information that there`s a lot more to come?

BASTONE: I think that what`s going on here is if the sum total of his writings were this one-act play that he called "Richard McBeef", then you could say, well, you know, it`s just some poor writer with, you know, sophomoric themes.

But I think what was going on here is that this was coming at a time that, you know, this is the end of 2005, or early 2006, clearly where he is having significant problems. He`s stalking girls.

And these are not the only writings that -- this one-act play is not the only thing that he produced that was of concern to people. I think what will eventually come out, and we`re chasing other one-act plays and other of these writings, as I think a lot of other people are. I think you`ll see this was one of a number of things that in toto I think raise significant concerns within the English department.

BECK: Jeff, I only have about 30 seconds here. He was writing these plays. He was stalking. He claimed he had an imaginary girlfriend. Is there anything here that the average person could go, "Uh-oh, that`s a sign?"

ROSS: The average person, no. But somebody who has access to all these markers, all these risk factors can say, hey, listen, this person definitely has a number of mental issues that need to be taken care of. He needs to be put under close examination.

And it does seem like he`s had some -- some observations, some sort of interviews with mental health counselors. But nobody could put it all together. There`s signs and signals but not the big picture.

BECK: OK, great. Thanks, guys.

Coming up, it has just been two days since the Virginia Tech tragedy, and the blame game already began. We`ll try to come up with some honest answers on how we can actually prevent tragedies like this in the future. And I don`t think you`re going to get those answers anyplace else.

And later on, the amazing story of the Holocaust survivor who sacrificed his own life to save his own students. I`ll tell you -- it`s more of an exploratory search to find out what separates heroes from villains, and which group we`re in. Stick around.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

RICHELLE CAREY, HEADLINE NEWS ANCHOR: I`m Richelle Carey with your Headline Prime newsbreak. And here`s the latest on the Virginia Tech murders.

New details are coming out about Cho Seung-Hui, the student gunman. NBC News received a package in the mail from Cho which they gave to the FBI.

A time stamp on the envelope proves Cho mailed it in the two hours between the two shootings Monday morning. It includes photographs of him holding weapons, videos and writings railing against rich people.

And a 2005 court order declared Cho mentally ill and an imminent danger to himself. Around that time, two women on the Virginia Tech campus accused Cho of stalking him, and a roommate told authorities Cho may have been suicidal. Cho was taken to a mental health facility, where he was evaluated.

The shootings also took center stage Wednesday on Capitol Hill. The House unanimously approved a resolution offering heartfelt condolences.

We`re also seeing a new look at the shooting unfolding. This video was shot by a Swedish exchange student.

That`s the news for now. Keep it right here. I`m Richelle Carey.

BECK: This morning during my radio show, I was talking about the Virginia Tech shooting, and a woman called in with her solution for dealing with the tragedy. She said that she was getting herself a gun. It would make her feel safer, more protected.

I`ve got to tell you, I can understand it. I`m a gun owner myself. I`m passionate about my support for the right to bear arms. But instead of all of us strapping on side arms, we got to look for a deeper cure for our ills.

Our country is in rough shape. Pornography, drugs, hip-hop music that is glorifying all that`s degrading, a loss of faith, division between right and left, black and white, all of these things are contributing factors to a culture that is, quite frankly, on the critical list. People are disillusioned in our country.

We have to help ourselves before it`s too late. Dr. Bill Maier, he`s the vice president for Focus on the Family, and the psychologist in residence. Also Dr. Charmaine Yoest, she is the vice president of communications for the Family Research Council.

So Bill, let me start with you. I feel as though we have lost our humanity in our culture, that man`s love for man has waxed cold. And I don`t mean just because of the shooting, but I mean by the way I feel about this shooting. It doesn`t impact me as much as Columbine did.

BILL MAIER, FOCUS ON THE FAMILY: We do. We`ve become callous in so many ways. I think we`ve cheapened human life. There are so many people in this day and age that all they`re concerned about is materialism, consumerism, getting ahead, and there doesn`t seem to be that ethic of caring for one`s neighbor, of caring for one`s brother. And we`ve lost that. It`s a tragedy.

And I think we see this in this shooting case, in that so many people were aware this guy had problems, and it seems like very few were able to reach out to him.

BECK: Charmaine, there is -- I don`t know, maybe it`s YouTube. I don`t know. Is it the movies? But there is a sense, or a separation between reality and real life now that you can shoot somebody and it`s like a video game. Is that accurate at all, do you believe?

CHARMAINE YOEST, VICE PRESIDENT OF COMMUNICATIONS, FAMILY RESEARCH COUNCIL: You`re exactly right, Glenn. I was looking at the promos for "Grindhouse", the latest Quentin Tarantino movie that`s out right now.

BECK: Yes.

YOEST: We really do glorify violence and just call that entertainment and turn around and be surprised when some of the disturbed kids out there take it a step further and want to act it out. So I think we really do have to look at that.

Although I would say, I think one of the things that is, you know, if there`s any silver lining at all, it`s these stories that are already starting to come out. We do still have heroes in our culture. And people who threw themselves in front of their students to save other people`s lives.

So, you know, it`s really an amazing tableau of both good and evil. And I think that`s really where we have to start. Is that we do have those competing virtues, virtue and evil in our culture.

BECK: Yes.

YOEST: And we have to be able to name it to say there is good and there is evil.

BECK: We`re not willing to do that most of the time.

YOEST: No, we`re not.

BECK: You know, let me ask you this. And this question goes to both of you. I said -- I`m an alcoholic and I said the serenity prayer on the air on radio today. And, you know, that is basically, you know...

YOEST: Did you get in trouble for that?

BECK: No. Grant me the serenity to be able to, you know, deal with the things I can`t change, and then the strength to change the things that I can. And the wisdom to know the difference between the two.

I can`t stop a gunman from coming into my kids` college or even their elementary school. But I can change a few things. Any idea of what I can do, me personally, and everybody watching, that you can do to change the culture?

MAIER: One of the things I think we can do, Glenn, is we can start really looking around at the people in our circle of influence, our friends, family members, co-workers, and taking a real interest in what`s going on with them.

And as we look at this shooter, this very troubled young man, I believe if there had been a few individuals, maybe an adult, a mentor, a peer, at some point in his life who reached out to him and said, "You know, I can tell. You`re really having trouble. You`re really angry. Tell me about it. Where does all this come from?"

Whether or not that would have made a difference, we don`t know. But certainly, that could have been something that might have headed off at the pass what happened.

YOEST: Can I take that one step further...

BECK: Sure.

YOEST: ... and say, we do need to have both, both the reaching out, saying you need help, you`re disturbed. Let`s try to help.

We also have to have accountability. Because we used to have a culture where you`d have aunts and uncles down the street who`d say, when kids were getting into trouble, hey, stop that. No throwing rocks at the windows.

There was an accountability throughout the community. We weren`t afraid to interact with kids in a way that said that that behavior is not acceptable.

BECK: But don`t you think that that came from a sense of community?

YOEST: Yes.

BECK: I mean, we used to -- I know Mrs. Olson used to live down the street from us. And I know if I did anything wrong and Mrs. Olson caught us, my folks would yell at us and we`d get in trouble. There isn`t that sense of community anymore.

We travel -- I travel an hour and a half. That`s my commute. I`m not in my community. Neither is anybody else that lives in my community. We all work in the city. And so we don`t know each other.

YOEST: Right. There is a real fraying of community.

MAIER: Well, that`s true, Glenn. You know, we see the garage doors go down at the end of the day and how many of us really know our neighbors? How many of us really know their names, or the names of their kids or what interests them? What are their passions in life? What`s troubling them in life? We don`t know that. And that sense of community has been lost.

And I think a big part of that, frankly, is our media-driven culture where we`re spending all of our time in front of a screen.

BECK: Yes.

MAIER: And very little time interacting with real live human beings.

BECK: Bill, Charmaine, thank you very much.

Coming up, we are sadly a nation that is now obsessed with records. It goes for sports, now apparently mass murder, as well. We`re going to talk to a criminologist next about whether future killers aren`t going to be motivated to find a place in the record books.

Also, the media wants to play the blame game. All right. I`m ready to play. What role has the media played in all of this?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BECK: You know, here in America, it seems we all hate math, but we love numbers, especially when they help us keep score. Anybody else notice the sick tally that we`ve been keeping? Even before the final death toll was known in this week`s Virginia Tech school shooting, the media couldn`t wait to tell us this is the worst mass shooting in American history.

What is it with our fixation on records? I mean, sports stats are one thing, but this is mass murder. And did anybody else watch TV and think, "Oh, this is great. You know there`s somebody out there going, `Well, I can do better than that`."

Jack Levin is a professor at Northeastern University. He`s also the director of the Brudnick Center on Violence.

Jack, why do we feel it`s necessary to rank things?

JACK LEVIN, PROFESSOR, NORTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY: You know, Glenn, we`re an extremely competitive society. We want to know who`s on top. We want to know who`s the winner. We want to know who`s in first place and second place and third place. That`s how you win the race.

BECK: But isn`t this the...

LEVIN: I think there`s also something else to this. I think after 9/11, we became sort of desensitized to violence, expecting really large body counts before we decided to do anything about it.

You know, 3,000 people got killed September 11, 2001. So, you know, what`s six, what`s eight, what`s ten lives snuffed out by a mass killer? Now we`ve got 32. That`s big news.

BECK: Isn`t this the kind of stuff, though, when you`re talking about the numbers, isn`t this the kind of thing that, you know, it`s almost like those trading cards with the mass murderers. Isn`t this the kind of stuff that some people feed on, because they look on it and say, "Well, I can be famous. I can be the worst in history."

LEVIN: You know, you`re right. You know, I spoke with a serial killer who had raped, tortured and murdered 11 children in British Columbia, Canada. And when I was with him, he talked about himself as Hannibal Lechter, and he started to confess to murders that I knew he couldn`t have committed.

He wanted to be the Heisman Trophy winner of serial murder. And that`s the way he did it. He wanted to have the largest body count ever.

BECK: I was in a small town when I heard about this. And I was on campus at a university in Idaho. And I thought, boy, you know, if it can happen in this little teeny town, it could happen in this town. If it could happen in the Amish community, it could happen anywhere.

And I started thinking about it, and I don`t even know if there`s any stats on this. Does this kind of stuff happen more in small towns? Because it always seems like it always is happening in a small town and not a large city.

LEVIN: Well, there`s a reason for that. And I think your observation is accurate. You know, it could happen anywhere. But it`s much more likely to happen in a small community, in a large school, where a student who feels like an outsider feels trapped. He doesn`t have alternatives.

You know, if you go to college in a large city, there may be several different groups you could join. You know, in Boston, we`ve got more than 100 colleges, got more than 150,000 students. If you can`t find somebody like you in one place, you will in another.

But if you`re an outsider looking in, and you`re in Blacksburg, which is a beautiful community, and also, if you`re at a school like Virginia Tech, where there`s a really strong sense of school spirit, if you don`t have that spirit, you feel like an outsider looking in. And I think that is a factor.

BECK: Sure. Thanks, Jack.

Up next, everybody wants to point the finger. Well, why don`t we look at the op media`s role in the tragedy? It`s "The Real Story", next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(NEWSBREAK)

BECK: Welcome to the "Real Story" tonight.

It was Monday morning, and the news broke out about the Virginia Tech shootings, and I was in a small rural college campus in Idaho. It was the kind of place like Blacksburg where you feel safe. You feel insulated from the violence in the rest of the world.

And as the numbers started trickling in and the tragedy became clear, I met more and more people right there on this small campus that surprised me with their reaction, because, quite honestly, I thought it was just me. They had the same reaction that I had. And I thought I was alone. They were sad, but they weren`t crying. They were heartbroken, but nobody was really shocked. The question is: Why? What has happened to us?

The real story tonight? America, sadly, has changed. Sometimes it takes a tragedy to see it, but I am afraid to say I think our innocence is gone. Not too long ago, this country thought it was different than the rest of the world. Then, one April morning, two Americans killed 168 people in Oklahoma City. And they made us realize we`re really not.

We thought our schools were safe. Then on another April morning, in Columbine, it showed us otherwise. We thought our cities were safe until the images of buildings collapsing and huge clouds of dust spilling through the streets on 9/11 proved us wrong yet again. We thought, well, gee, we could get away from all of it. We could be unplug. You`ll be safe in a small town. Then five young Amish girls were massacred in their school room.

The human connection to these tragedies is still there. In this tragedy, I feel for the families, I do. I`m human. I`m a dad. I even understand the brutality and the enormity of it all. But the difference is, now, I`m not shocked by it.

Did you honestly have the same emotions on Monday that you did after Columbine? Be honest. I didn`t.

We`ve become more hardened, more callous. There`s a part of me that believes it`s partly the media`s fault, in a way, and I`m in the media. We`re feasting on these stories. I`m in cable news, and you can call me a hypocrite if you want.

But I see what happens from the inside. And you`ve just got to keep feeding this animal. You know, one week it`s a media frenzy over the father of Anna Nicole`s baby; the next week we`ve got blood all over other faces, and it`s the blood of Don Imus; and now it`s Virginia Tech. It`s all about the bigger story, the sexier story, the story that will rate the best because it makes you cry or scream with horror.

The media -- and, unfortunately, I do include myself in this -- they don`t always care about the people in these tragedies. They just want to make you care about them, because then you`ll watch.

Less than 24 hours after the killing, the media was interviewing the fathers and the brothers of these victims, people who were clearly still in shock. Does the public really need to see these people? Or are we just exploiting a tragedy?

We are no longer the people who watched Columbine in horror, because we`ve already seen SWAT teams at a school and kids jumping out of windows to survive. You know what scares me now, is what we haven`t seen. What kind of tragedy has to happen to get us past this numbness? What is it going to take to reconnect with the raw emotions that we`ve all lost? Admit it. I don`t know. But I fear, like it or not, we are going to find out.

Bernard Goldberg, he is the author of "Crazies to the Left of Me and Wimps to the Right of Me," former correspondent for CBS News. Bernard, do you think I`m wrong on this? Am I alone?

BERNARD GOLDBERG, AUTHOR: No, but I think we live in the United States of Entertainment. And in the United States of Entertainment, tragedy makes for what we call good television.

BECK: You know, I was thinking about the coal miners, Bernard. You remember the story about the coal miners, and the media was there with the victims. And we`ve all moved on. We`ve forgotten about it. It is just entertainment now. You were with CBS for years. Did you ever feel dirty?

GOLDBERG: I covered the first wide-bodied plane crash in the Everglades in 1972, and I went to the Miami airport, and there was a woman sitting there who looked miserable. And I was brand new at CBS at the time, and I walked up to her and I said, "Did you have somebody on that plane?" And she said, "Yes, my husband."

And, you know, I determined, from that moment on -- and that was in 1972 -- I`m not doing that. I can`t do it. I understand that somebody may want to do it. And I even understand that the people who think it`s disgusting watch it.

But, you know, it`s like everything has to be entertaining in some way. And I don`t mean entertaining "ha-ha" necessarily, but it has to be dramatic. News has to have all the elements of literature. There has to be confrontation; there has to be drama; there has to be a good guy; there has to be a bad guy.

BECK: You know...

GOLDBERG: And we get nowhere with this.

BECK: You know what the problem is, Bernard? You`re exactly right. It does have to have all of that drama, but what the average viewer doesn`t notice is it also has an agenda. It has a big-time agenda.

I want to play a little bit of what has happened. This is Rosie O`Donnell in the last two days. Remember, the bodies haven`t even been put in the ground yet. Here`s Rosie O`Donnell. Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROSIE O`DONNELL, HOST, "THE VIEW": The NRA is the most powerful lobby in Washington, and if you stand up against them, they will stop you in any way they can.

(CROSSTALK)

O`DONNELL: Every other civilized country in the world has sensible gun legislation. No one`s trying to take away the right of hunters to hunt; we`re trying to take away illegal handguns.

I don`t think Bush is the president who`s going to do anything about gun control.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BECK: I mean, these guys, they don`t get it. I know in your book you talk about Rosie O`Donnell. I mean, she is saying, "We`re just trying to take away illegal handguns." This shooter had a legal handgun.

GOLDBERG: Let me say that, even though I`m not a gun person, I`m not an anti-gun person. Let me say that conservatives don`t want lunatics walking around with guns, either, but I think what you just played is really important in a much bigger way than guns.

What Rosie O`Donnell and other liberals don`t have a clue about is the gun culture, red-state America and conservatives in general. In the book, "Crazies to the Left of Me, Wimps to the Right," I talk about how I used to be on the left, but they got angrier and angrier and moving further and further to the left. And now I find myself on the right.

And my liberal friends, Glenn, say to me, "Well, you`re not really a conservative." I say, "Why not?" "Well, you`re not a racist. You don`t drool on yourself. You read and write. You`re not married to your sister." Well, that`s how they see conservatives in general and gun people in particular.

And we`re never going to get anywhere in this debate as long as liberals don`t have a clue that there`s a whole country between Manhattan and Malibu filled pretty much by decent people, even though they live in red states.

The wimps on the right, the wimps on the right ought to be saying, "You want to have a debate about gun control? Absolutely. Let`s have it. But everything should be on the table, including statistics that show that 500,000 people a year avoid being victims of crimes because they do have guns."

BECK: But that doesn`t serve the media agenda.

GOLDBERG: It doesn`t fit the template. It doesn`t fit the template. You`re absolutely right about that.

BECK: Do you think Imus would have been fired this week? If the Imus story would have broken this week...

GOLDBERG: That`s a great question. You know, we only focus on one, in this case, tragedy, but one big story at a time. And if Imus still had his job but was simply being pilloried, this would have been -- I`m saying this in a perverse way -- but this would have been the best thing that happened to him, because now our attention is on this. If Imus happened the same day as Virginia Tech, no, we wouldn`t be talking about Imus at all. He`d still have his job.

BECK: Bernard, thank you very much.

Up next, the story of true courage in the face of this terrible tragedy. I`m going to tell you the story of one amazing man who gave his life so his students could live. And I`m going to try to find out what separates real heroes from you and me. Don`t go away.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(NEWSBREAK)

BECK: You know, they say, it was the best of times, it was the worst of times. I think that goes to the human spirit. It`s often strongest during times of great tragedy. Amidst the horrific events at Virginia Tech, the courage of a few helped save the lives of many.

Now, you might have heard the story of the professor that survived the Holocaust only to die in his classroom while saving his students. Was I the only person who wondered if I would have responded that way? Because I don`t know.

I want you to watch this story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BECK (voice-over): It`s hard to imagine what runs through the mind of a person risking his own life to save the lives of others in the face of danger. With an armed killer trying to get into his classroom, Liviu Librescu, a 66-year-old Holocaust survivor, barricaded the door using his own body as a shield. He saved the lives of all of his students; he was shot dead. This man gave up his own life so his students could go on with theirs.

JEFF GARDERE, CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGIST: I think this professor, who was a victim of the Holocaust and eventually a victor of the Holocaust, said, "Never again," and he wouldn`t let a mass murder happen, even though it did happen, but he gave his life to protect many who might have also died.

BECK: His son wasn`t surprised to hear of his father`s bravery. It defined him; it will be his legacy.

JOE LIBRESCU, SON OF MURDERED PROFESSOR: I knew that he was going to take action, he`s going to do something that`s not sort of normal or definitely not something common.

BECK: And there were more heroes. Senior Zach Petkewicz and his classmates threw up a table against the door to form a barricade to keep out the gunman. It was a split-second decision, a decision that will now define him.

ZACH PETKEWICZ, VIRGINIA TECH SENIOR: He came to our door, tried the handle, couldn`t get it in, because we were pushing up against it, tried to force his way in, got the door to open up about six inches, and then we just lunged at it and closed it back up. And that`s when he backed up and shot twice into the middle of the door, thinking we were up against it.

BECK: It`s moments like these when our true colors come through. Heroes shouldn`t have to rise from tragedy, but, time and time again, that`s exactly what they do.

GARDERE: All of our heroes have dealt with fear, but the way that they use it is almost as a rocket fuel to step up and do the right thing.

BECK: It`s their stories of incredible courage that allow us to heal from such tragedy. Heroes give us hope, but they also present us with a question: Is there a hero in me?

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BECK: I don`t know. Honestly, I don`t know how I would react. Joining me now is psychologist Debra Mandel.

Debra, what traits -- how do we know how we would react?

DEBRA MANDEL, PSYCHOLOGIST: It`s a great question. I don`t think most of us do know how we`re going to react. We just do. And we`ve had many times, all of us in our lives, usually where there`s been a little bit of a crisis or something that`s chaotic and something that calls to our attention. And it`s those many moments that we can see more of our true character. Heroes tend -- yes, go ahead.

BECK: But there`s a difference between -- I work with a guy, Adam Clark (ph), who is a spooky dude. I`ve walked down the road with him here in New York. Two times he`s stopped a purse snatcher. He just clotheslined a guy. I wouldn`t have even thought of doing that, but it just didn`t even occur to him not to. But there`s a difference between even that and using your body as a shield up against a door.

MANDEL: Right, and that`s absolutely being willing to die at that moment. And people who rise above that, people who become heroes are usually people who -- they`re not necessarily thinking about the outcome, and they`re not thinking about themselves. They`re thinking about the greater good for the larger community.

And so they tend to be very highly moral, very compassionate, they have very strong ethics, they`re protective, they`re courageous, they`re brave. And they have an element of risk-taking that a lot of other people don`t have.

BECK: Unfortunately, you just answered the question. If that`s a description of what a hero is, I`m in trouble, or anybody who`s in the room with me is in trouble, because I don`t care what you do with the women and children. Just leave me alone, I guess.

Something else that I`ve pulled away from this -- and maybe it`s, again, I just keep thinking everything is me. I`m thinking this -- we live in such a culture now that is just so centered on "me, me, me," we don`t even -- I mean, we don`t even have Boy Scouts. There was that one Eagle Scout...

MANDEL: Oh, yes.

BECK: ... who tied off his own leg. If he hadn`t done -- if he hadn`t been an Eagle Scout, he probably would be dead.

MANDEL: Yes, he may not have known what to do.

BECK: Right. What is it that we should be doing with our kids?

MANDEL: Yes, this is a huge issue and one that I`m very passionate about. I think that we are raising a generation of children who are entitled. They`re self-absorbed. They don`t think about other people. I`m not saying all of them. I mean, we do try to instill -- most of us try to instill good values in our kids. But we don`t really force them to use them.

You know, we tell them about that, but then we coddle them, and we give them all these extra things. We don`t say no to them. We don`t put them in difficult situations to challenge them. I mean, I look at the difference between what I was able to do at 14 versus what my daughter`s able to do. Now, it was a different time, but she`s so much more coddled, and not just by me, but by society at large.

BECK: All of society.

MANDEL: Yes. And I think what we need to be doing is helping our children get out there, do charity work, not just because they`re going to get community service credit that looks good on their college apps, but because it feels good to do it, you know, really encouraging...

BECK: But how many people are actually doing that though? I mean, if you look at it...

MANDEL: They`re not.

BECK: ... I`ll bet you a lot of charity done by kids -- I mean, Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts used to teach you that. And it wasn`t for anything; it wasn`t for college; it was because it was the right thing to do.

MANDEL: Exactly. And that`s what`s missing in a lot of this. We`re telling kids to do the right things, but they get credit for it. They get rewarded for it by external things, like, oh, you`re going to get a better grade or I`ll pay you to do this, instead of having that intrinsic motivation, that motivation that comes from within, because it`s the right thing to do. It feels good.

And you know what? A lot of that also comes from, how do parents role model that? You know, a lot of parents don`t role model that. And if they start to behave that way, I think we can get our children to be a little bit more other-centered than just me-centered.

BECK: Thanks. We`ll be back with a final thought in a minute.

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BECK: You know, believe it or not, it was only six months ago when we all watched in horror as Charles Carl Roberts terrorized a classroom of Amish children in Pennsylvania. Everybody remembers the shootings, the anger. Do you remember how it made you feel? Most likely what we don`t remember is the name Charles Carl Roberts. Why? I think it`s because of the way the Amish reacted that became the story.

Do you remember the Amish grandfather standing there with the young boys, as he gathered them around, telling them they must not think evil of this man, all while standing just feet away from the body of a 13-year-old girl? Dozens of Amish that made up half of the mourners at the funeral for the killer, it was their outpouring of support for a family of a mass murderer in an almost impossible time that was something I don`t think any of us will ever forget.

It was their principle of forgiveness, and unlike the principles of almost everybody we deal with from work to Washington, they didn`t change when things got tough.

As we watched the fallout from the Virginia Tech massacre, I think we see a lot of the same strength that we admired from Pennsylvania, but we also see a lot of finger-pointing going on. People are already talking about lawsuits and delays and gun laws and anything else that can possibly be held responsible besides the shooter. And, you know, some of those things are valid, but I hope there winds up to be a little more.

You know, one of the things that raced through my mind after the initial reports were the parents, and not just the parents of the victims, but also the parents of the shooter. You know, they ran a dry cleaning shop in Virginia. And by all accounts, they were just normal citizens that have just been torn apart by this tragedy, just like everybody else. Can you imagine the thought of your son doing something like this?

Reports today have swirled around that they both have attempted suicide; however, it looks like they were both just hospitalized due to shock. I guess it`s kind of counterintuitive. I mean, a big part of me thinks the last thing I`m going to waste my time on is the parents of a vicious lunatic.

But, really, we shouldn`t forget the lesson that we all learned while watching the way the Amish reacted in Pennsylvania, that tragedy brings out both crushing emotion and opportunity. In this case, it`s the opportunity to look back six months from now and not remember the name of the maniac who did it. And if that happens, it will be small, but a significant footnote to a devastating event.

From New York, good night.

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