NBC Airs Virginia Tech Shooter Tape and Photos

One last obscenity-filled, profanity-laden, angry tirade directed at the entire world and no one in particular. The Virginia Polytechnic Institute shooter, who killed 32 people on Monday, in two successive attacks and then turned the gun on himself, speaks from the grave. Before entering Norris Hall and after he shot two people in the dormitory, Cho Seung-Hui took the time to mail a media kit (including a 1,800-word manifesto, video snippets that amount to almost ten minutes and 48 photographs) to NBC. He wanted people to know why he did it, why he caused what is still referred to by the term of 'the worst massacre in American modern history'.

The tragic event took place on April 16 and resulted in the death of 32 students and professors. A few hours after the shootings, police officers found Hui's body - he had committed suicide. Late last night, NBC received the huge package the killer mailed in between the shootings (first, he killed two students in his dorm room and then entered the classroom where he shot at random, ending the lives of yet another 30 people). After alerting the FBI and presenting all the materials to the chief investigators, the network aired the footage and the photos in which the killer 'explained' his actions.

The manifesto speaks about how he was forced to do it, vaguely alludes to 'martyrs like Eric and Dylan' (probably in reference to Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, the teenagers who, eight years ago, shot 12 students and a teacher at a Columbine High School) and about doing 'what had to be done'. Hui's message is disturbing and shocking, clearly revealing a man who had long lost touch with reality. It includes the approximately 10-minute video and 48 photos. In 11 of them, Hui is either pointing a gun at the camera or at his head.

In the video, aired by NBC within hours after they received it, Hui points his finger at someone unnamed, saying that the world could have prevented the massacre. 'I didn't have to do this. I could have left. But no, I will no longer run. It's not for me. For my children, for my brothers and sisters that you f**k, I did it for them', he says, adding that 'You had a hundred and billion chances and ways to have avoided today. But you decided to spill my blood. You forced me into a corner and gave me only one option. The decision was yours. Now you have blood on your hands that will never wash off. When the time came, I did it. I had to'.

After the FBI investigated the media kit, NBC aired it saying that, in the true spirit of journalism, they had to show to the public what lied at the core of the massacre. NBC executives told the media that they spent hours dissecting the issue before putting the material on air. 'We tried to be sensitive to the families involved and to the investigation. While it is "possible" that some relatives of the 32 students shot to death Monday may say that the network is giving the killer the platform he wanted, they also may say, "We want to know why. We need to know what was in his head, what drove him to this." This is a portrait of a killer', Steve Capus told the 'Washington Post' this morning.

In response to the airing of the video and photos, many members of the victims' families have canceled their appearance on NBC's morning 'Today' show, as a sign of protest.