RA Prof Slays 3 When Tenure Denied

[Albert Hidel]

Hell hath no fury like...

3 Die in Shooting at U. Alabama-Huntsville

HUNTSVILLE, Ala., Feb. 12, 2010

Shooter Allegedly Opened Fire After Denied Tenure, CBS News Affiliate Reports; 3 Other People Injured

Three people were killed and several more injured in a shooting Friday in a science building at the [regionally accredited] University of Alabama's Huntsville campus, university officials said.

A woman was in custody, but university spokesman Ray Garner said he could not identify her or the victims. Local television stations reported she is a faculty member.

A source tells CBS News affiliate WHNT-TV in Huntsville that the suspect is a faculty member who was denied tenure at the university. After being denied tenure in the morning, the suspect walked into a biology department faculty meeting Friday afternoon and opened fire, WHNT-TV reports.

WHNT-TV reports that three victims were injured in the shooting. Two of those victims are in critical condition at a hospital, the TV station reports.

Two of the injured victims are men and one is a woman, WHNT-TV reports. Huntsville Hospital spokesman Burr Ingram confirmed that description of the victims. The gender of the victims in critical condition was not clear.

None of the victims were students, WHNT-TV reports. Garner told reporters Friday night that, of the six people shot, five are faculty members and one is a staff member. The staff member was in critical condition, Garner said. The three people who died were faculty members, he said.

At one time, Huntsville Hospital was told to expect as many as 10 victims, WHNT-TV reports.

WHNT-TV reports that a man and a woman were in custody. Garner told reporters Friday night that the man was detained for questioning, not arrested, by Huntsville police.

Earlier, university spokesman Ray Garner said one suspect is in custody.

Sophomore Erin Johnson tells The Huntsville Times a biology faculty meeting was under way when she heard screams coming from the room.

The shooting happened Friday afternoon in the university's Shelby Center, a science building. University police secured the building and students were cleared from it.

Alabama Sen. Richard Shelby released a statement to WHNT-TV about the shooting.

"I am deeply saddened to hear of this horrible tragedy. My thoughts and prayers are with the faculty and staff of the University of Alabama-Huntsville," the statement reads.

The Huntsville campus has about 7,500 students in northern Alabama, not far from the Tennessee line.

The university posted a message on its Web site Friday afternoon telling students the campus was closed Friday night and all students were encouraged to go home. Counselors were available to speak with students.

Garner said the campus was closed while police gathered evidence. He said at a news conference that the shooting was not unlike one the area experienced a week ago, when a 14-year-old student was shot to death in a middle school hallway, allegedly by a fellow student.

"This town is unaccustomed to shootings and multiple deaths," he said.

[Albert Hidel]

University of Alabama in Huntsville biology professor in custody regarding deadly shooting at faculty meeting

By Patricia C. McCarter
February 12, 2010, 5:45PM


Shooting suspect Amy Bishop is taken into custody. She has not been charged with a crime.

HUNTSVILLE, AL -- A biology professor is in custody in connection with three fatal shootings on the University of Alabama in Huntsville campus Friday afternoon, according to a UAH official.

Dr. Amy Bishop, a [regionally accredited] Harvard-University trained neuroscientist, was taken into custody, and her husband has been detained. They have not been charged with a crime.

According to police, three people were killed and three were wounded when the shooter opened fire during a biology faculty meeting on the third floor of the Shelby Center for Science and Technology. The three injured people are being treated at Huntsville Hospital.

In June 2006, The Times published a story involving Bishop, biology professor and her husband, Jim Anderson, chief science officer of Cherokee Labsystems in Huntsville.

Bishop is quoted in the story as co-inventor of "InQ," a new cell growth incubator which promised to cut the costs, size and maintenance involved in the mechanics of cell generation.

From the story: InQ co-inventor Amy Bishop credits the coming together of a group of people with certain skills and crossover knowledge in a series of highly fortunate events fueled by Huntsville's evolving entrepreneurial spirit.

"It's great to actually see it hit the market, and the sooner the better," Bishop said. "My colleagues think it will change the face of tissue culture. It will allow us, as researchers, to not live in the lab and control our tissue culture conditions, including the sensitive cultures including those like adult stem cells.

"The conditions to differentiate those have to be exact, and the incubator will help that."

Tired of applying 1920s science to the rapidly advancing work of biotechnology, Bishop approached her husband ... about inventing a portable cell incubator. Together, she and Anderson designed a sealed, self-contained cell incubation system that is mobile and eliminates many of the problems with cultivating tissues in the fragile environment of the petri dish.

It also has its own on-board computer that maintains and regulates the incubator, allowing tighter control of the cell environment.

[Don Dresden]

According to police, three people were killed and three were wounded when the shooter opened fire during a biology faculty meeting on the third floor of the Shelby Center for Science and Technology.

No doubt, another "gun free zone." So if Dr. Hahvahd can stroll in there with a weapon and start blasting, what is to keep some terrorist from riding in on his camel and RPGing the admin building?

Wasn't Alabama the place where Gollum was trying to get them to run all the unaccrediteds out of town? Nice to see how real colleges operate. Gold standard, baby!

[Dickie Billericay]

Gold standard, baby!

DEATH CARTEL strikes again.

[Winston Smith]

Professor Charged in Alabama Campus Shooting Reportedly Killed Brother in 1986

Saturday, February 13, 2010

An Alabama university professor accused of fatally shooting three colleagues at a faculty meeting this week shot her younger brother dead at their home in the Boston suburbs more than 20 years ago, but records of it are missing, police said Saturday.

Amy Bishop shot her brother in the chest in 1986, Braintree police Chief Paul Frazier said at a news conference. She fired at least three shots, hitting her brother once and hitting her bedroom wall, before police took her into custody at gunpoint, he said.

Before Bishop could be booked, however, the police chief back then called officers and told them to release her to her mother, Frazier said. The shooting of the brother, Seth Bishop, was logged as an accident, but detailed records of the shooting have disappeared, he said.

"The report's gone, removed from the files," he said.

The Harvard-educated neurobiologist who became an assistant professor at the Alabama school in 2003 has been charged with capital murder, and other charges are pending.

Frazier said people who worked for the police department then remember the shooting and he planned to meet with the district attorney over the possibility of launching a criminal investigation into the report's disappearance.

The former police chief, John Polio, said Saturday in an interview at his home that he was astonished at any allegation of a coverup. He said he didn't call officers to tell them to release Bishop.

"There's no coverup, no missing records," he proclaimed.

A University of Alabama at Huntsville spokesman said Bishop, 42, had been denied tenure before she was held Friday in the campus shooting.

As Bishop was being taken to jail in handcuffs she said: "It didn't happen. There's no way."

Attempts by The Associated Press to track down addresses and phone numbers for Bishop's family in the Braintree area weren't immediately successful Saturday. The current police chief said he believed her family had moved away.

She was taken Friday night in handcuffs to the county jail, and said as she got into a police car: "It didn't happen. There's no way. ... They are still alive."

District Attorney Ron Broussard said he did not think Bishop has a lawyer. Her husband, James Anderson, was detained and questioned Friday, though he has not been charged.

Ray Garner, a spokesman at the Huntsville campus, said Bishop had been denied tenure -- a type of job protection afforded academics -- months ago, and this was to be her last semester.

Some have said the professor, who students said was bright but had difficulty explaining difficult concepts, opened fire because of a dispute over the issue.

[Dennis Ruhl]

Shot her brother 3 times and it was an accident?

But officer the gun just went off - 3 times.

[Winston Smith]

Motive in Question as Professor Faces Murder Charge in Alabama Campus Shooting

...Students' assessments of Bishop varied. Some recalled an attentive, friendly teacher, while others said she was an odd woman who couldn't simplify difficult subjects for students. Sammie Lee Davis, the husband of a tenured researcher who was killed, said his wife had described Bishop as "not being able to deal with reality" and "not as good as she thought she was."

Davis said his wife was a tenured researcher at the university. In a brief phone interview, Davis said he was told his wife was at a meeting to discuss the tenure status of another faculty member who got angry and started shooting.

University spokesman Ray Garner said that Bishop was up for tenure, but that the faculty meeting was not called to specifically discuss tenure.

Davis' wife, Maria Ragland Davis, was among those killed, along with Gopi K. Podila, chairman of the biological sciences department, and another faculty member, Adriel Johnson.

...Andrea Bennett, a sophomore majoring in nursing and an athlete at UAH, said a coach told her team that Bishop had been denied tenure, which the coach said may have led to the shooting.

Bennett described Bishop as being "very weird" and "a really big nerd."

"She's well-known on campus, but I wouldn't say she's a good teacher. I've heard a lot of complaints," Bennett said. "She's a genius, but she really just can't explain things."

Amanda Tucker, a junior nursing major from Alabaster, Alabama, had Bishop for anatomy class about a year ago. Tucker said a group of students complained to a dean about Bishop's classroom performance.

"When it came down to tests, and people asked her what was the best way to study, she'd just tell you, 'Read the book.' When the test came, there were just ridiculous questions. No one even knew what she was asking," Tucker said.

Gopi K. Podila--Adriel Johnson--Maria Ragland Davis

I'll leave it to you geneticists out there to determine the ethnic status of the shooter and the victims. But you have to wonder what would piss off somebody so badly that they would come out blasting.

Maybe something like being denied tenure for some reason other than your job performance? Like, I dunno, maybe not belonging to the correct ethnic group?

[Winston Smith]

Shot her brother 3 times and it was an accident?

But officer the gun just went off - 3 times.

Hey, it's Massachusetts. If she had driven him off a bridge and drowned him she would have gotten elected to the senate.

Worse than that, she took three shots but only hit him once! That's a felony in Texas.

[ham]

I'll leave it to you geneticists out there to determine the ethnic status of the shooter and the victims. But you have to wonder what would piss off somebody so badly that they would come out blasting.

What a horrible way to see things...
You know steam engines, hot air balloons and antibiotics were first discovered in Africa, along with the Eiffel Tower and the press...how uninformed you are...
And you smolder with hate because East-Indians are so smart...well, the streets of India ain't much, but I can tell you they are smarter than Alabama hillbillies...nuclear fusion, airplanes and satellites were first pioneered in India.
I pray the lord to have mercy and to forgive you all for the horrible thoughts in your minds... heyman.

[Little Arminius]

Any guesses on whether George Gollin will comment on this case of faculty on faculty violence?