A report on the shooting at ODU that killed a professor who was a native of Staunton and alum of Charlottesville High School earlier this year contains echoes of the 2022 shooting at UVA that killed three football players.
The report, released on Tuesday, indicates that Mohamed Bailor Jalloh, 36, who opened fire on an Army ROTC classroom in March, was not asked about his criminal history before or after he was readmitted to the school.
Jalloh, a former member of the Virginia National Guard, was sentenced to 11 years in a federal prison after pleading guilty in 2016 to providing material support to the Islamic State group.
Jalloh, a native of Northern Virginia, qualified for early release after completing a drug treatment program.
Public colleges and universities in Virginia are not allowed under state law to inquire about a student’s criminal history before admission, but they can do so after a student has been admitted.
Jalloh’s probation officer also failed to share his criminal background with the university, according to the report, prepared by the law firm Cooley LLP, which a release from the school said “was given complete freedom to interview members of the Old Dominion University community and review documents, relevant video and other materials with sole discretion over the content and recommendations in the report.”
“Given that Virginia law requires universities to rely on student self-disclosure, it is even more important that other law enforcement agencies ensure that information that universities need to know to safeguard their students is shared with universities. This critical failure led to tragic consequences here,” the report tells us.
Jalloh opened fire on the Army ROTC classroom on March 12, killing a military-science professor, Lt. Col. Brandon Shah, and wounding two students, before he was subdued and killed by students trying to neutralize the danger.Top of Form
In addition to praising the “extraordinary heroism and bravery shown by Lt. Col. Shah and the ROTC cadets,” the report concludes that the attack was a “targeted terror attack on ROTC students and their leader,” which would have been “difficult if not impossible to prevent.”
“On behalf of the University, I want to thank Cooley LLP for the attention to detail maintained throughout their process, the candor in their findings and the thoroughness of their report,” ODU President Brian O. Hemphill said in a statement highlighted in the release.
“The campus community has my complete assurance that we will act quickly to fully implement Cooley’s recommendations as we actively work to make our campus as safe and secure as possible,” Hemphill said.Bottom of Form
Other developments in this case
A Smithfield man pleaded guilty earlier this month on charges connected to the shooting earlier this month.
Kenya Mcchell Chapman, 32, of Smithfield, pleaded guilty on one count of dealing in firearms without a license, and three counts of making false statements during purchases of firearms – the latter three charges related to a 2021 investigation.
According to an affidavit filed in the case, Chapman’s phone number came up in a search of a phone associated with Jalloh, who, per phone records, called Chapman at 10:19 a.m. on March 12, minutes before the shooting.
Their interactions went back March 5, according to the phone records, which logged six calls between Chapman and Jalloh, who was taking online classes at ODU, between March 5-12.
Location data associated with the phone records show that Jalloh had traveled from the vicinity of the ODU campus to a residence in Smithfield associated with Chapman on the morning of March 6, and left that area several hours later to travel to a residence in Sterling associated with Jalloh.
The location data then show Jalloh returning to the ODU area on March 10, then making a trip from ODU to the Smithfield residence associated with Chapman on March 11, and that Jalloh then stayed at the residence overnight after a short trip back and forth to the Islamic Center of Hampton.
Jalloh left the Smithfield residence at 8:58 a.m. on March 12 to travel back to the ODU campus.
As authorities executed a search warrant at Chapman’s residence, Chapman, per the affidavit, admitted that he stole the firearm used in the shooting from a vehicle in Newport News last year, and sold it to Jalloh for $100, claiming that Jalloh had said to him that he needed a firearm for protection as a delivery driver.
Similarities to 2022 UVA Football tragedy
The echoes of the 2022 shooting at UVA that I noted in the lede: the perpetrator in that case, Christopher Darnell Jones, had been convicted in 2021 on a concealed weapons charge, and had not reported the conviction to the University as required.
The school prepared to refer the failure of Jones to report the conviction to a student-led judiciary committee for potential discipline, and after originally saying that this had been done, a school spokesperson later clarified that the matter had in fact not been referred to the committee for further action.
It also later emerged that Jones was able to legally buy two guns from a Colonial Heights gun dealer in 2022 as he was serving three active 12-month suspended sentences, including one on the concealed-weapons conviction, after twice attempting to purchase guns from the dealer, in 2018 and 2021, and being denied because he failed the background checks on those two attempts.
Jones got five life sentences plus 23 years on convictions related to the shootings in a sentencing hearing last fall.
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Chris Graham
