Prof. charged in 3 fatal shootings on Ala. campus

[chasmj]

Source: Associated Press

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. – A biology professor at the University of Alabama's Huntsville campus was charged with murder late Friday in the shooting deaths of three fellow biology professors at the campus.

Authorities say Amy Bishop, an instructor and researcher at the university, opened fire during an afternoon faculty meeting, killing the three colleagues and injuring three other school employees. Bishop has been charged with one count of capital murder, which means she could face the death penalty if convicted. Bishop, 42, was taken Friday night in handcuffs from a police precinct to the county jail and could be heard saying, "It didn't happen. There's no way .... they are still alive." Police said they were also interviewing a man as "a person of interest."

University spokesman Ray Garner said the three killed were Gopi K. Podila, the chairman of the Department of Biological Sciences, and two other faculty members, Maria Ragland Davis and Adriel Johnson.

Three others were wounded, two critically, in the gunfire, which Davis' husband said occurred at a meeting over a tenure issue. The injured were identified as department members Luis Cruz-Vera, who was listed in fair condition, and Joseph Leahy, in critical condition in intensive care, and staffer Stephanie Monticello, also in critical condition in intensive care...

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_ala_university_shooting

[K8-EEE]

1. WOW!

Unfortunately school shootings are not rare enough in this country but a professor? A WOMAN professor? That shocks me.

[canetoad]

2. What shocks me

is the culture that nurtured this event.

[Hekate]

3. That, too.

How horrible.

Hekate

[FailureToCommunicate]

32. What shocks me is teachers packing heat. It matters little "why" she killed-jilted lover,

loss of tenure try, money troubles,whatever. There is always be a reason. Those factors will always be with us. The tool that makes it possible to shoot and kill so many in a meeting is simply the gun.
Now all the DU gun lovers will chime in and tell us how that lady could've killed with a knife, or pointer or ruler, or...........
But really, how many of those teachers do you think this one could attack with a knife, or baseball bat, before the others subdued her?
People kill people, yes. But people with guns kill more easily and more people.
30,000 a year. Year in and year out.

[mvd]

109. I don't support a ban on guns in the U.S. at least (it's the culture), but since..

they are primarily used for violent means, I support gun control. I would support the same for other things primarily used for violence. As to the shooter, I hope she spends the rest of her life behind bars. Just because she's a rare female shooter doesn't mean this wasn't cold blooded. She obviously has mental problems since she denied it ever happened in the police car, but she knew what she was doing.

[Suji to Seoul]

7. Women aren't capable of cold blooded murder?

Susan Smith?

Holocaust survivors has told me in the past that the female guards were even more brutal than the male guards.

[Sanity Claws]

15. Statistically very mass killers are women.

It is a rarity.

[Suji to Seoul]

98. Does not mean it's not in their nature to do it. . .it's just rare!

If convicted, I hope she goes away until she pushes up the daisies.

[K8-EEE]

99. Yes it is rare and therefore somewhat shocking n/t

[democrat0986]

4. this just one week after another huntsville shooting at a middle school

in which a 9th grader shot another one in the back of the head. i don't know what the hell is going on in my city but i don't like it.

[NJCher]

5. appears to be a tenure issue

Here's a link to a later story in the NY Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/13/us/13alabama.html?hp

From reading both the articles, she was denied tenure and when she appealed it, she was again denied tenure. This sent her off the deep end and she shot three of her colleagues dead and injured others.

The articles give her credit, saying she has mixed reviews from students but I can tell you as a prof myself, students are pretty tolerant. Anyone who has had as many complaints as she obviously had is not meant for the classroom. The lab and research, for sure, as she certainly achieved in those areas. But at research universities, pedagogy is not emphasized so much. It's those research dollars that keep one in the running there.

Furthermore, she pretty much blew it with the students with this, which I read at the Yahoo article:

"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," said Tucker.

Sounds like she was sandbagging the students. For the most part, all students ask for is a fair deal and it doesn't sound like she was giving it.

What an incredible waste of talent and education with those three professor gone. What heartache for their families and all who knew them. What trauma for those who were injured. Their lives will never be the same. My heart goes out to all of them.


Cher

[Divine Discontent]

10. appears to be a mentally unstable issue. she couldn't handle not getting what she wanted.

she probably had no control in her own life outside of school, and did nothing but teach, and felt hopeless as she aged and didn't get tenured. Just wow... how sad and sickening. All those years and effort by those other professors whose lives she took away.

She went off the deep end for something that was beyond unworthy to even harm another about. Tenure!

[boobooday]

11. My heart goes out to her colleagues as well

They showed real character in denying her tenure based on her failings as a teacher. At a lot of Research I universities, this would not have stopped her.

I'm a professor too, and this makes me so sad. She has stolen so much from the victims' families and the UA academic community.

If she really was a promising researcher, she could have found work in a lab setting where she didn't have to teach.

[tonysam]

27. If it was just over the tenure, she could have easily bounced back

at another university. University tenure isn't at all like public school tenure; in the latter, if you are nonrenewed, your career is basically over with because of systemwide blackballing.

[bbgrunt]

31. losing a tenure fight is akin to being "blackballed" especially

these days where there are hundreds of applicants for every possible job. This fact in no way condones what she did, but when a faculty member loses a tenure fight they are essentially fired.

[LisaL]

119. She would have to leave the university she worked at.

And there could be hundreds of applicants for one faculty position, so it would not be easy to find another comparable faculty job.

[liberation]

50. Huh? Failure to get tenure basically bars you from any profesorship.

And cast a very bad shadow on future employment in the field, which implies even more work to clean up. And that is assuming that one can get a similar line of employment in industry, because from an academic standpoint failure to obtain tenure is akin to basically being barred from any significant academic involvement.

Not easy to bounce back, in fact is the complete opposite. Me thinks you have not much experience, or knowledge of the whole process.

[heli]

22. Maybe an intellectual property issue as well?

With the inventions that she and her husband had...
If they had to sign over the IP, then her losing the teaching job might have been the last straw.

[tonysam]

26. And not to be nasty about it, the woman couldn't write for shit

I realize using jargon is common among professors and those of a scientific bent, but her webpage was totally unreadable. It made no sense at all.

No wonder she couldn't hack it as a teacher.

[aquart]

6. Take a look at the faculty pictures. TAKE A GOOD LOOK.

<http://web.archive.org/web/20060704203622/www.uah.edu/colleges/science/biology/faculty.html>

I wanted to see their faces. Then I noticed they had something in common.

She didn't shoot the white people. Coincidence?

[muriel_volestrangler]

8. I don't think you can tell what happened

Leahy is white; no pictures of Cruz-Vera and Monticello, but you'd guess one is Hispanic, and one European from the surnames. But mainly, we don't know who was present (Cruz-Vera is a department member, but isn't on that page, so there may have been more people there we have no idea about, and we don't know how many staffers like Monticello were there either). Without that, trying to list the proportion of white and non-white people shot is impossible.

[Divine Discontent]

9. you didn't look at the guy in the first row of names. Leahy is white and in critical condition.

why do people not turn in unstable people for being in need of counseling before this murderous crap happens? so sad...

[aquart]

12. True. Were they sitting in a cluster?

Leahy is critical. Someone with an hispanic name is also. But the dead?

If I were a cop I'd be asking about that.

[enuegii]

14. Okay, let's say you're a cop

in this situation. You have a professor who has been denied tenure, and appealed the decision, which was apparently denied, The professor then whips out a gun and shoots the department chair (who judging from the name, is likely an Indian man) and others at a meeting discussing this.
Do you really mean to tell me that the first question on your list is "Why did she shoot the Indian guy"?
You wouldn't think it might have something to do with his being the chairman of the department that denied her tenure, maybe?
Oh, but it's in Alabama... there's got to be a racist angle, right?
Well... you just keep up the good work there, Clouseau..

[glinda]

69. Maybe it was a religious angle

[liberation]

43. Well... good thing you are not a cop

it seems you already had a specific narrative in mind, and are looking at facts as things to be circumvented in order to keep said narrative intact. Not a very good approach to crime fighting, me thinks.

[Divine Discontent]

90. yep. just to ask it at least. because who knows her true intent.

[Syrinx]

13. "she didn't shoot the white people"

She didn't shoot the white people.

Yet she shot at least one white person. You need help. Trying to make cheap identity-politcs points from the deaths of three innocent people. That's just sick.

So you think she should have shot more than one or two white people? :shrug:

What an insult to liberal and progressive thought. Damn.

[Rebubula]

16. Obviously...

...you WANT this to be about race.....

Nice job

[DeadEyeDyck]

102. I hope you are joking

this is really dark
LOL
LOL
LOL

[Robb]

17. Everyone's assuming it's a tenure issue.

I don't know a lot of professors who wrapped that tightly about work. I do however know a lot of people who are wrapped that tightly about affairs of the heart.

Statistically speaking, she was shooting at someone done her wrong. The man being interviewed as a "person of interest" suggests as much as well... why would anyone else particularly care about her tenure issues? :shrug:

[muriel_volestrangler]

18. She shot at 6 (or more) people, all in the department

So 'affairs of the heart' looks a bit of a stretch - that would make it an orgy. She had been turned down for tenure that morning. She came armed to a department meeting after that. The 'person of interest' is her husband; it may be his gun, for instance, and they may be wondering if he knew she was going to do it.

[Robb]

29. Indeed.

It is already a statistically aberrant situation. I was merely suggesting a way to bring it back down to more "usual" circumstances.

There is always the possibility she simply kept shooting after she got who she was after as well. We don't know enough yet.

[TheCowsCameHome]

19. More senseless killings.

Utterly senseless.

[JCMach1]

20. Most profs are legends in their own minds...

I say that as one.

That probably cut both ways in this event. Big arrogant egos and unstable colleague= tragedy.

[Paladin]

21. So The Victims Had It Coming, Right?

Thanks for your constructive contributions to this thread. Have a nice day.

[JCMach1]

24. Didn't say that... there is also the alleged shooter's ego...

Sometimes people forget that academia can be brutal... And yes, the egos!

Did anyone see the film "Dark Matter"?

http://www.darkmatterthefilm.com/

[liberation]

44. Yeah, projection being what it is and all... nt

[slackmaster]

23. Tragic waste of life

Some people take their careers and themselves way too seriously.

[undergroundnomore]

25. Murder is always sensless

Even more sad because just a few days earlier a young man was shot and killed at Discovery Middle School in Huntsville, AL. When oh when are we going to put an end to the culture of violence?

[FarCenter]

28. She had also participated in a faculty challenge to the President over student housing regulations

"In 2009, University of Alabama in Huntsville's president, Dr. David Williams, changed the university's regulations to require all freshmen and sophomores to live on campus beginning the fall of 2010. This is a change to UAH's traditional commuter-college identity and will place additional financial burdens on local students. The recently built UAH residences halls are funded by bonds which are to be paid back by student rents. In November 2009, Dr. Amy Bishop led a motion to censure Dr. Williams at a UAH Faculty Senate meeting. The UAH faculty senators were concerned that the new regulation would make UAH less affordable for many local students. Dr. Bishop stated "It will generate a different economic strata and diversity,"<5> The UAH student residency policy of Dr. Williams is under investigation by the Alabama Legislature and may be reversed.<6>"

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amy_Bishop

[skip fox]

30. At my university, tenure is decided at the Academic VP and President level

based on department and dean recommendations or lack thereof.

It could be that the department did not support her application for tenure or would not institute an appeal on her behalf.

At many universities denial of tenure is relatively rare barring state budget problems. At mid-level state universities, departments try to hire people whgo will be successful at both reasearch and teaching. The screen process is usually demanding.

I've been a professor for over 28 years and have known some rather hard feelings over denial of tenure or promotion. Not only are people's livelihoods affected, but the denial seems to attack their notion of self-worth. (Remember, many of them have speant over 5 years of graduate school--jumping through increasingly difficult hoops--and 5 years in their assistant professorship to get to the point of tenure decision. That's at least 10 years of hard work and dreams, a third or fourth of a typical working lifetime just to get to the point of having secure employment. The world seems to ride on the decision. (I remember going through it a coupole decades ago with a wife and three kids in the bal;ance with me.)

Think of all that work. That investment. Now consider that dashed for a rather sensitive and high-strung person.

A very sad day.

[tonysam]

38. Of course colleges and universities are getting around the tenure issue

by simply hiring "adjunct" or "visiting" instructors who aren't full-time faculty. They don't have a prayer of ever working as regular, tenured professors.

[glinda]

71. obviously she did not have the faculty support to get tenure plus probably was in

hock buying a house while she settled in and paying off loans and who knows what all else

[LuckyLib]

81. You're right. And then consider the possibility that she was emotionally unstable in addition

to the tenure stress, was a very poor teacher, and when it all came down, could not believe she couldn't receive support from colleagues in her own department. Recipe for disaster. The number of very strange folks in academe is staggering. The isolation and culture of the university system insulates them and most can function. Some cannot.

[Name removed]

33. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[FailureToCommunicate]

34. "Threatened" by committee denying her request? Give me a break. The report says

she had a "long standing grudge". Sounds premeditated. If this were a student shooting a room full of teachers because she got an "F" is that "self defense"?

[baldguy]

35. People have been shot for ringing a doorbell

Or for having the wrong skin color, and for a myriad of other insane reasons - and their shooters get off by pleading "self defense".

[Pavulon]

40. Dishonest line of discussion.

mixing in self defense with a murder is pretty lazy.

[baldguy]

42. Thinking every problem can be solved with a gun is dishonest.

Thinking every problem should be is lazy.

[Pavulon]

45. Did any one claim all problems were??

nope didn't think so. Pretty silly to post what you did and expect to maintain credibility among any person with half a brain.

[baldguy]

46. "If only guns weren't banned at the school, none of this would've happened."

[Pavulon]

48. I dont see that post..

however being shot while you murder people generally stops you from continuing on murdering people.

[Name removed]

52. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Pavulon]

54. Yep, having the choice to die on your feet

vs die with no options is preferable. If someone popped her before she killed others that would be a favorable outcome.

[baldguy]

56. So, are you now claiming every problem can be solved with a gun?

Or just that they should be?

You can't even get your arguments straight.

[Pavulon]

57. Some can. I cant fix a faucet with a gun, or replace a flat tire

wrong tool. I can shoot someone busy murdering people. Unlike a pair of pliers or a wrench a firearm is the tool to deal with that challenge. Pretty straightforward line of discussion here.

[baldguy]

61. Ah, but if you could figure out a way to do it, you would! Wouldn't you?

It's just that shooting guns are just so damn fun! The fact that they can kill thing too is just a bonus, isn't it?

In a free society, no human should have that much power over another. Otherwise it's no longer free.

[Pavulon]

63. Better ban a whole shit list of stuff.

big list of chemicals in your house, they can make the explosives used to blow up the public transit system in europe.
Ban private schools, I mean people with a "better" education have power over you.

Ban the police, ban the military, ban cars. Some idiot just killed someone else in a car, while texting, fucking with an ipod, or drunk.

They are just as dead.

Ban sleepy doctors.

People kill other people, its what they do and have done since the dawn of time. I prefer to have a choice in the matter.

Ban the constitution, because you will never get the votes to actually change it.

cheers.

[Paladin]

62. I Would Greatly Appreciate Your Staying Out Of My Neighborhood.

Thanks so much for your understanding. Have a nice day.

[Pavulon]

66. I would appreciate a new 40' J Boat

but alas that is not going to happen. I am a really great neighbor, you would come over, do what ever you do, golf, mountain bike, and never have an idea that I carry a ccw.

The wife, an attending, would throw you for an even bigger loop.

You cant drive a hybrid camry with obama stickers, shop at whole foods in Chapel Hill, and conceal a sig p239. Not possible.

Because all people who carry wear camo and live in trailer parks.

[slackmaster]

41. Bullshit

:nuke:

[Paladin]

64. Yoshihiro Hattori, 10-17-1992, Baton Rouge, LA

Have a nice day, Slackmaster.

[slackmaster]

65. FAIL

He wasn't shot for simply ringing a doorbell.

I think you know that, Paladin.

[baldguy]

70. Right. He was shot for being an Asian ringing a dorbell.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoshihiro_Hattori#Fatal_incident

"Two months into his stay in the United States, he received an invitation, along with Webb Haymaker, his homestay brother, to a Halloween party organized for Japanese exchange students on October 17, 1992. Hattori went dressed in a tuxedo in imitation of John Travolta from Saturday Night Fever. Upon their arrival in the quiet working class neighborhood where the party was held, the boys mistook the Peairs' residence for their intended destination due to the similarity of the address and the Halloween decorations on the outside of the house, and proceeded to step out of their car and walk to the front door.

Hattori and Haymaker rang the front doorbell but, seemingly receiving no response, began to walk back to their car. Meanwhile, inside the house, their arrival had not gone unnoticed. Bonnie Peairs had peered out the side door and saw them. Mrs. Peairs, startled, retreated inside, locked the door, and said to her husband, "Rodney, get your gun." Hattori and Haymaker were walking to their car when the carport door was opened again, this time by Mr. Peairs. He was armed with a loaded and cocked .44 magnum revolver. He pointed it at Hattori, and yelled "Freeze." Simultaneously, Hattori, likely thinking he said "please," stepped back towards the house, saying "We're here for the party." Haymaker, seeing the weapon, shouted after Hattori, but Peairs fired his weapon at point blank range at Hattori, hitting him in the chest, and then ran back inside. (Kernodle 2002; Fujio 2004; Harper n.d.) Haymaker rushed to Hattori, badly wounded and lying where he fell, on his back. Haymaker ran to the home next door to the Peairs' house for help. Neither Mr. Peairs nor his wife came out of their house until the police arrived, about 40 minutes after the shooting. Mrs. Peairs shouted to a neighbor to "go away" when the neighbor called for help. One of Peairs' children later told police that her mother asked, "Why did you shoot him?"

The shot had pierced the upper and lower lobes of Hattori's left lung, and exited through the area of the seventh rib; he died in the ambulance minutes later, from loss of blood."

...

After the jurors deliberated for three and a quarter hours, Peairs was acquitted under Louisiana's "Kill the burglar" statute.

Rewriting the history of that tragic incident is sick & pathetic.

[slackmaster]

77. Cited article doesn't support your claim that he was shot for being Asian and ringing the doorbell

Nice try, but it is fundamentally dishonest.

You people don't seem to be able to cite any story or law or anything else without selectively editing out parts of it or embellishing it. Why is that?

[baldguy]

80. Read further.

Japanese were shocked not only by the killing, but by Peairs' acquittal. Shortly after the Hattori case, a Japanese exchange student, Takuma Ito, and a Japanese-American student, Go Matsura, were killed in a carjacking in San Pedro, California, and another Japanese exchange student, Masakazu Kuriyama was shot in Concord, California. Many Japanese reacted to these deaths as being similar symptoms of a sick society; TV Asahi commentator Takashi Wada put the feelings into words by asking, "But now, which society is more mature? The idea that you protect people by shooting guns is barbaric."

1.65 million Japanese and one million Americans signed a petition urging stronger gun controls in the US; the petition was presented to Ambassador Walter Mondale on November 22, 1993, who delivered it to President Bill Clinton. Shortly thereafter, the Brady Bill was passed, and on December 3, 1993, Mondale presented Hattori's parents with a copy.

Suspicions of implicit racism in the acquittal of Peairs further gained traction when, shortly afterwards, a homeowner named Todd Vriesenga, inside his house in Grand Haven, MI, similarly shot and killed a 17 year old named Adam Provencal through the front door. Vriesenga received a 16 to 24 month term for "reckless use of a firearm resulting in death", causing both Japanese and Asian-American advocacy groups to speculate on whether the difference between Vriesenga's conviction and Peairs' acquittal was related to the race of the victims. Other groups publicly stated that Vriesenga should have been convicted of the more severe charge of felony manslaughter.

Just who's selectively editing? Hm?

[Paladin]

74. He Was Shot And Killed For The Unforgivable Sins.......

....of ringing the wrong doorbell and being a young Oriental man. And his killer walked. I'm sure you know that, Slackmaster.....

[slackmaster]

78. He was shot because of an unfortunate set of circumstances that led to a tragic misunderstanding

The man who shot him admits that he made a mistake, regrets it greatly, and vowed never to own a gun again even though he was acquitted of all criminal charges.

[Paladin]

84. He Vowed Never To Own A Gun Again? Really?

And here I was, thinking for all these years that the case was a travesty of international proportions, and that rigorous, meaningful justice had never been administered. How could I have been so wrong?



(Sarcasm alert, for those perpetually in need of one.....)

[slackmaster]

39. What a revolting, disgusting thing to write

Try using language like that in the Gungeon, and see how long your post lasts.

[tonysam]

36. What is amusing is how the media keeps describing her as "Harvard educated"

as if going to a hoity-toity school beloved by the Beltway media means a damned thing.

After all, Ted Kaczynski was a Harvard graduate.

[heli]

55. and Roberts, Scalia, Rehnquist, .... - and of course George W. Bush

[northernlights]

37. Harvard-educated means one of two things to me...

either 1. truly gifted or 2. not so gifted, but truly connected. Definitely goes hand in hand with arrogance. It's brutally competitive to get into the first-class research universities, and those in 2nd and 3rd class universities can be true misfits in those environments.

The best professors I've had consistantly have masters degrees, usually double-masters with one in education, not PhDs. The one exception -- my literature professor with Princeton PhD -- is working class and got through Princeton based on ability, scholarships and work, not $$$. The PhDs suck at explaining things, think they're better than everybody, and so on.

I asked a question once of my Rutger's Molecular Biology PhD professor and he told me to "try reading the book." I discovered weeks later, buried in the middle of a 50+ page chapter, a single sentence answering my question that I must have missed when I dozed off from exhaustion. The thing is, that's not an uncommon response when they want to keep you in your place. I got snotty answers from him twice when I asked questions in class, and never asked again. But favored students could ask either very challenging or very simple questions and he'd answer them till the cows came home. You just have to ignore them and keep going.

I also performed musically with a Harvard PhD music director who didn't get tenure. He was arrogant as all get out, and not nearly as talented as he thought he was, but talk about a sense of entitlement. :puke: Not getting tenure after having been groomed for and living in that ivory tower for nearly 16 years nearly did him in. Definitely brought him down a peg or two, although once he inherited the family fortune, he just disappeared into a different ivory tower.

Getting tenure is tricky in any environment, but some are particularly tough. They have to produce research, publish, teach reasonably well, be tolerated if not liked by key faculty that are all a bunch of oddballs...in a brutally competitive environment.

[liberation]

47. Huh? 16 years to get to a tenure evaluation

How in the hell does that work, tenure as a process usually takes about 5/6 years of assistant professorship. Not 16 years, as far as I know.

[tonysam]

49. I think the poster means 16 years of education.

n/t

[northernlights]

87. 4 years to BS, 2 years to MS, some # of years to PhD

and Asst Professorship somewhere between MS and PhD. Basically, he was All Hahvid All the time from age 18 until 34 or so.

[heli]

59. Community colleges also have excellent teachers

They seem to be more accessible and very good at explaining the freshman/sophomore stuff. If I'm not mistaken, most community colleges require a teaching demonstration during the hiring process.

[Dappleganger]

86. In agreement...

but I hope this doesn't change with the increasing surge of students due to the recession.

[eppur_se_muova]

97. As do most colleges and universitites.

If you're applying at a research-heavy university, you're expected to give a killer presentation on your research. But you may very well be asked to give a sample class lecture as well.

If you're applying at a school that does more teaching, less research, a teaching presentation will likely be your only presentation.

About the only way to get hired without doing a sample lecture is on a very short deadline, or for a very short term.

[glinda]

72. it is competitive. My husband always had people trying to get his job and find a

way to remove him. They were always young and just graduated within five years and disparate for work.

[LisaL]

112. Someone can not be a tenure track university professor with

just a M.S.. A Ph.D. is necessary for that.

[Born_A_Truman]

51. She also shot her brother 24 years ago

http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2010/02/professor_accus.html

The University of Alabama biology professor accused of slaying three of her colleagues fatally shot her brother in an apparent accident in Massachusetts more than two decades ago, a local police chief said.

(snipped)

John Polio, chief of police at the time, said Amy Bishop, who was 20 at the time, had asked her mother, Judith, in the presence of her brother how to unload a round from the chamber of a 12-gauge shotgun.

Polio told the Globe that while Amy Bishop was handling the weapon, it fired, wounding Seth Bishop in the abdomen. He was pronounced dead at a hospital 46 minutes after the Dec. 6, 1986 shooting.

[tonysam]

53. Holy crap. n/t

[baldguy]

58. You can use a gun to kill anyone if you can claim it's an accident or self-defense.

[Pavulon]

60. At some point the police were invented, along with the INVESTIGATION.

see they convict people who try to do that all the time.

[slackmaster]

67. That's not true anywhere in the USA

Criminal defendants make all kinds of ridiculous statements in order to try to stay out of prison.

[baldguy]

68. Criminal defendants make all kinds of ridiculous statements in order to try to stay out of prison.

And as this case proves, some obviously succeed.

[Name removed]

79. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Name removed]

83. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[slackmaster]

104. She was never charged with a crime for shooting her brother

You're not making any sense.

[glinda]

73. eeee gad

[Liberal_in_LA]

75. OMG.

[woo me with science]

88. Police Chief says shooting of her brother was intentional but covered up.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x4268130

[slackmaster]

105. If that's true, it's a travesty

She would possibly have still been in prison if she had been charged, tried, and convicted.

[Paladin]

106. In Other Words........

.....saying she was really sorry about what happened and vowing never to possess a gun again wouldn't cut it with you, this time around?

[slackmaster]

107. No

I don't understand how you could possibly have come to that conclusion.

[northernlights]

89. except now it gets worse, because there may have been a coverup

Different account of what happened 20 years ago, according to current police chief and cop involved in the original shooting. Supposedly they were in the middle of arresting or booking her when Polio told them to release her and send her home with her mother.

And the files have been missing for more than a decade?!? :wow:

Braintree address. Gifted musician/scientist brother. Sounds like she came from money to me. That would say option #2 in my earlier post re: Harvard PhDs.

[Born_A_Truman]

95. Files have been found!

http://www.necn.com/02/13/10/State-Police-investigative-report-86-Bis/landing.html?blockID=180126&feedID=4215

(NECN) - Following a press conference in which Braintree's police chief said the department's police report of a 1986 shooting involving Amy Bishop has been missing for over 20 years, a State Police investigative report was released.

The Massachusetts State Police attached to the Norfolk District Attorney's Office searched its records archive and discovered the investigative report into the shooting of Bishop's brother, Seth, in December 1986.


The police chief at the time of the fatal shooting, which never led to any charges filed against Amy Bishop, denied a cover-up in the case. She has been charged with murder in the shooting deaths of three fellow biology professors at the University of Alabama in Huntsville.

View the six-page State Police investigative report:

(at the link)

[TorchTheWitch]

108. This is NOT the missing reports

This report is the 1987 report from the DA's office after the so-called investigation. The 1986 police report presumably written by the arresting officers/detectives is what is missing and is still missing. According to the current police chief who recalls the incident the missing records tell a very different tale including that she left the house with the gun, pointed it at a passing car in an apparent attempt to carjack it (the car didn't stop) and fled and was arrested elsewhere at gunpoint. During her booking, it was the Chief at the time who halted everything and sent her home with her mother through a back door... mom at the time was on the town personnel board.

http://www.necn.com/02/13/10/Contradictory-tales-of-1986-Bishop-shoot/landing.html?blockID=180170&feedID=4215

Again, it is the Braintree PD's reports that went missing and are still missing - the ones that tell a VERY different tale.

[K8-EEE]

101. If only the brother had a gun go off "accidentally" before hers did

THEN things would have been different! Just trying to think the "guns-solve-violence" way....

[Dappleganger]

76. So, here are the variables listed so far which could have pushed her over the edge...

1) The stress of gaining tenure then being denied her life's work.
2) Antagonism with the university administration over the changes regarding freshmen/sophomore housing.
3) Current research issues dealing with stem-cell research (money/patents/recognition issues brought up in article comments).
4) Past shooting of brother, whether or not on purpose we don't know.

and of course 5) Mental stability, the greatest variable of them all.

Some people would also add 6) Access to a handgun.


IMO the greatest variability here is #5, coupled with the tenure issue understanding that #2 and #3 seriously skews her ability to trust the decisions of the school and her feeling of control. #4 also comes into play as well, IMO, because my guess is that she has learned to live with that reality by denying the reality of what happened (both her responsibility and her own loss).

This is very telling about her state of mind; when questioned by reporters she replied, "It didn't happen. There's no way .... they are still alive."

It seems as if she is disassociating herself with the scene of the crime itself and the results of what happened to her colleagues. IMO it is quite possible that this is also how she coped with her brother's killing and it wouldn't surprise me if there are other areas in her life which will parallel this line of thinking.

BTW, I'm not a mental health professional by any means but unfortunately due to family members have a LOT of experience trying to figure out why people do violent acts and not take responsibility.

What do you think?

[tonysam]

82. She was denied tenure last spring and had appealed

From the New York Times:

On Friday, Ms. Bishop presided over her regular neuroscience class before going to a biology faculty meeting on the third floor of the Shelby Center for Science and Technology.

There she sat quietly for about 30 or 40 minutes, said one faculty member who had spoken to people who were in the room. Then Ms. Bishop pulled out a 9-millimeter handgun and began shooting, firing several rounds before her gun either jammed or ran out of ammunition, the police said. At least one person in the room tried to stop Ms. Bishop and prevent further bloodshed, said Sgt. Mark Roberts of the Huntsville Police Department.

After Ms. Bishop left the room, the police said, she dumped the gun — for which she did not have a permit — in a second-floor bathroom. The people left behind barred the door, fearing she would return, the faculty member said.

Ms. Bishop was arrested outside the building minutes later, Sergeant Roberts said at a morning news conference on Saturday.

Bishop and her husband have four children.

More

[Dappleganger]

85. Wow, that's a lot more info...

it will be interesting to hear how this will turn out for everyone involved, but I feel most sorry for her four children who will have to live with this stigma the rest of their lives, as well as the losses for the families in the shooting.

[FailureToCommunicate]

91. Variables 1,2,3, and 5 happen everyday. Add #6 and people die. 30,000 per year

All just headlines and posturing, till it happens to your family.

[baldguy]

92. +1

All too often the difference between an embarrassing mistake and a horrific tragedy is the access to a gun.

What would've happened yesterday if Dr Bishop had no gun? Probably a lot of screaming & yelling & swearing - but no deaths.

[proteus_lives]

118. So you think that line of thinking justifies stripping Americans of their rights?

[K8-EEE]

103. +1

[MadMaddie]

93. This woman is walking mental health disaster

<snip>
More than two decades ago, police said Amy Bishop fatally shot her teenage brother
<snip>

This woman had major issues the victims probably had no idea what they were dealing with.

Universities are going to have to start implementing policies like corporations do, if it is bad news the individual is escorted out etc.

May the victims RIP and the injured recover.

[LisaL]

113. I don't see anything to suggest she was a "walking mental health

disaster."
She was able to get a PhD, get a tenure track faculty position, and compete for grants.
Doesn't sound like a "walking mental health disaster" to me at all.

[MadMaddie]

114. She killed her brother 20 years ago

The police were never happy with that investigtion. She was highly intelligent but was unable to communicate to students and very eccentric.

Just because she was able to get her PhD doesn't mean she was sane. Theodore John Kaczynski was also brilliant and he killed and wounded several people. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Kaczynski

[LisaL]

115. She shot and killed her brother 20 years ago?

And police were never happy? What does that prove, exactly? Are you suggesting that anyone who shoots and kills someone is insane?
Highly intelligent but unable to communicate well? What does that prove? There are plenty of intelligent people who are not able to communicate well, it doesn't make them insane. Being eccentric doesn't make someone insane.
As for Kaczynski, he was a recluse, not able to function in society, and even he wasn't considered legally insane.

[MadMaddie]

116. Sorry about that I got distracted

20 years ago police thought it was a cover up because her mother had worked with law officials at one time. She wasn't questioned for 11 hours after the incident. She says the gun went off and she ran from the house. She also claims she didn't know her brother was shot and killed.

Again just because someone is highly intelligent does not mean that they are above committing a crime or capable of having mental issues.

What is wrong with admitting the U.S does not address mental health issues in this country? She went into that meeting with a weapon because she was expecting the outcome that occurred. She wasn't capable of handling rejection and because of that 3 people are dead.

We all face rejection but most of us don't kill because of it.

[LisaL]

117. Not 11 hours. 11 days.

She was questioned Dec 17th. The brother was shot and killed Dec 6th. By the way, not able to deal with rejection doesn't make one insane.

[jxnmsdemguy65]

94. This incident is yet another illustration of the absolute hell of academia...

puffed up egos, easily bruised, constant back biting and back stabbing among all those involved. I don't see how anybody fools with it at all. To those involved in it - get a life and GET OUT!

[heli]

96. A tenured professor is a pretty cushy job in any economy

Flexible hours, no boss breathing down your neck, great pension benefits. A guaranteed paycheck for life as long as you don't have sex with a student or deal heroin out of your office. If you don't like your clientele (students), they'll be gone the next semester. If you need work done, hire a graduate assistant. Heck of a deal.

[tonysam]

100. It's totally different from public school "tenure."

n/t

[LisaL]

111. You have to get there first.

It takes years of education, then competition for a limited number of grants. It's a high pressure competitive environment, and it takes a long time before one is in a position where one can get tenure.

[jobwithout]

121. You are too funny

Anyone who has worked with tenured professors know that the vast vast vast majority of them are dedicated educators who could certainly make more money in other pursuits. Please don't spew those RW talking points.

[Sultana]

110. Throw her in jail, forever

[Yavin4]

120. Why Isn't This Incident Classified As Terrorism?

Oh, that's right. A Muslim didn't do the shooting. Carry on.