A time line of the rampage emerged yesterday as police provided new details about what they uncovered in the 10 days since Cho committed the worst mass shooting in modern US history.
The five minutes police spent breaking into the building proved to be crucial. During that time, Cho picked off his victims with a hail of gunfire. He killed himself after police shot through the doors and rushed toward the carnage.
Corinne Geller, State Police spokeswoman, praised the officers' response time, noting that had police simply rushed into the building without a plan, many probably would have died right along with the staff and students. She said officers needed to assemble the proper team, clear the area, and then break through the doors.
"If you go in with your backs turned, you're never going back," Geller said. "There's got to be some sort of organization."
Some police and security specialists question the five-minute delay, saying authorities should have charged straight into the melee.
"You don't have time to wait," said Aaron Cohen, president of IMS Security of Los Angeles, who has trained SWAT teams around the country since 2003. "You don't have time to preplan a response. Even if you have a few guys, you go."
Cohen said a trained SWAT team should have been able to get inside a locked building in less than a minute.
The rapid response by police to school violence has become an important issue in the past decade.
After the Columbine massacre in 1999, police around the country adopted new policies for so-called active shooters. Police would no longer respond to emergencies such as school shootings by surrounding a building and waiting for the SWAT team. Instead, the first four officers rush into the building and attempt to end the threat immediately. This system was used to end a 2003 school hostage standoff in Spokane, Wash.
Tom Corrigan, former member of the New York City Police Department -FBI terrorism task force and a retired detective, said five minutes seems like a long time when gunfire is being heard, but he said it is tough to second-guess officers in such a chaotic situation.
