“He was basically a brother,” said Nolan Faulkner, a fellow Air Force ROTC cadet who shared a dorm with La Porte. “In this dorm in particular ... people are taking it to heart.”
Those close to La Porte describe him in contradictions. A Corps of Cadets drummer who adored thrash metal. A lean-muscle beast in the gym who never showed off. A young man whose quietness could be mistaken for aloofness. His friends knew him as a thinker.
“He didn’t say much, but when he did, it was just perfect or really hilarious,” said Elizabeth Fonseca, a friend and Corps of Cadets member. “Random things were on his mind. He thought a lot, but he was quiet so you had to pick him apart.”
La Porte was raised in Dumont, N.J., where we worked as a lifeguard during summers off.
Cho, whose parents live in Centreville, Va., is a South Korean national who has lived in the United States since the early 1990s. He killed himself in a classroom building as officers closed in, police say.
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