Beyond Reason

The horde wanted to know what Cho was like, whether he had friends, whether there was anything odd or strange about him. Johnson, who is from Annandale, told them that Cho was just a guy he used to see in the hallway. As one group of reporters finished their interrogation and wandered away, another group pushed to the front and asked the same questions, to which Johnson patiently gave the same answers: just a guy who lived in the dorm.

That's not a satisfying answer, because it doesn't advance the story we're so anxious to tell ourselves. We want this tragedy to prove something. We want it to fit some recognizable template. We want it to make sense because, if there is logic to what Cho Seung Hui did, there should be a logical way to keep such a thing from ever happening again.

An element of randomness and unpredictability is part of any event. What if university officials had shut down the campus after the first murders at West Ambler Johnston? Would Cho have been caught? Or would he have gone off campus to a mall or a school and found others to kill?

One reporter kept pressing Johnson. Was there anything, anything at all, that was unusual about Cho?

Johnson deadpanned that anyone who would gun down dozens of people in cold blood was obviously unusual.

eugenerobinson@ washpost.com