Breaking: 3 dead in University of Alabama Huntsville campus shooting; Update: Live video updates added; Update: Shooter was faculty member denied tenure today
posted at 6:21 pm on February 12, 2010 by Ed Morrissey
Not too many details on this yet, but it’s another tragic story from a college campus:
Officials at the University of Alabama’s Huntsville campus say three people have been killed and another injured in a campus shooting. University spokesman Ray Garner says a woman is in custody but he could not identify her or any of the victims.
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.
Usually these involve disaffected and socially isolated males, not females, so that detail is an eye opener. This just broke, and not too many other details have been published, but I’ll keep my eyes on this tonight.
Update: Changed the headline to specify the Huntsville campus.
Update II: The AP has updated its story to note that there are “several other” shooting injuries apart from the three deaths and one wounded in the original article, according to the mayor’s chief of staff.
Update III: Live video coverage from local station WHNT added.
Update IV: WAFF reports that the shooter was a faculty member who got denied tenure today:
Authorities said a female faculty member during a Biology faculty meeting learned she would not receive tenure. She then pulled out a gun and started shooting.
Update V: Three dead, three injured, two in critical condition — all faculty members. No students were targeted, according to news reports now.
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Fox is now posting a story from AP stating that Amy Bishop has been charged with ONE count of capital murder .What about the other 2 dead people ?
Perhaps many people knew Bishop was going to be denied tenure today and it runs deeper ?
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,585682,00.html
ELMO Q on February 13, 2010 at 12:48 AM
Seems odd that a denial of tenure would come at a departmental meeting.
Such notification, either acceptance or denial, comes from much higher up.
As I recall from my time in the great state of Alabama the application process goes from department to dean of the college to the provost to the president of the university to a governor appointed commission to finally the governor himself. Denial can occur at any step along the way for any reason, but obviously the higher up your application goes the less chance you have of being denied. The process begins at the start of the academic year and, if you are successful, you hear nothing until you are notified by the governor’s office. If you hear something before then: bad news. It makes for a stressful year. Now, from what I gather it sounds as if she heard something, true or not, relatively early on in the process which is never good news which means her application was denied “close to home”. You can appeal if denied, but that is never pretty and rarely successful, but I do know individuals who are tenured due to a successful appeal. As such this was a planned shooting; she didn’t snap, she set up an an ambush.
Bubba Redneck on February 13, 2010 at 1:58 AM
I doubt conservative people think they should be some special protected class. So I am guessing that this was Liberal on Progressive violence. I think until I learn more I will be able to sleep just fine until the liberal progressive media somehow take a 20 year democrat voting person and turn her into some conservative.
astonerii on February 13, 2010 at 2:09 AM
Union teacher? I don’t know if that applies to college educators, but I’m guessing she is. They are led to believe that the union membership makes them privileged.
leftnomore on February 13, 2010 at 3:22 AM
“Bennett, an athlete at UAH, said her coach told her team Bishop had been denied tenure and that may have led to the shooting.
“She went to Harvard, so she is very smart. I can see that her getting denied tenure at UAH would be pretty upsetting,” said Bennett.”
Ah, well-taught college students get it.
leftnomore on February 13, 2010 at 3:26 AM
I’m a bit confused here. Isn’t the definition of a conservative being a protected class?
Interesting characterization. I’d go with crazy person on others violence. Similar to Scott Roeder, Terry McNickols, Tim Micveight, Eric Robert Rudolph…
How would the liberal progressive media be distorting facts here?
disillusioned on February 13, 2010 at 3:43 AM
Turns out she’s an evolutionist. That explains the rationale. A truly sad day.
shawk on February 13, 2010 at 5:18 AM
Glenn Beck did it! Damn those blackboards!
Squiggy on February 13, 2010 at 6:33 AM
Wow. You really ARE confused. The definition of “conservative” is “I’ll take care of myself, thank you very much“.
We are the protectors of our own family. If government will leave us alone, we’ll keep turning out children just like ourselves. Children who take care of themselves. And you lefties will keep “protesting” and “demanding” and feeling soooooooo superior to the troglodytes on the other side of the fence.
I guess you really need to wipe us out. Because one of these days we’re gonna get backed up too far. And your whining won’t work on us anymore.
Squiggy on February 13, 2010 at 6:43 AM
Terrible. Just stupid to do that to other people. Such a sense of entitlement. She should know that tenure is tough to get, that it’s very political and be prepared to move on to another university and start all over again. It’s pretty routine to deny tenure as it holds down the money paid out for salaries and also maintains the social circle jerk that the top professors prefer to maintain at a particular institution.
They’re really no different than some guy who’s a foreman at a construction business and juices in his relatives, drinking buddies or some dumbass who’s dad is so and so with whom it is important to stay in good graces.
How come disgruntled prison guards never go postal and start taking out the punks who have been on death row for thirty years?
Dr. ZhivBlago on February 13, 2010 at 8:10 AM
Exactly right. She knew she would be denied and she staged the attack to get revenge.
BottomLine5 on February 13, 2010 at 8:43 AM
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/2010/02/12/2010-02-12_shooting_at_university_of_alabamas_huntsville_campus_leaves_3_dead_1_injured_wom.html#ixzz0fQUAVRCN
A Harvard University-trained
neuropsycho-scientist…..Fixed!!
bayview on February 13, 2010 at 9:30 AM
Now, your comment will be seen as simplistic and will lose its effect, but I’d like to develop it a bit.
The murderer, if she is a typical biology professor, presumably believes that human life is the random product of material elements, and nothing more.
The murderer in a typical conversation would reject the claim that there is meaning to life, arguing that individuals mistakenly believe they have a sense of ultimate meaning, but one’s sense of oneself as having a personal identity with moral consequence is a mere epiphenomenon, the result of random neural cells firing, and not objectively real. Probably determined by some “god gene” or something stupid like that.
Thus, the murderer, in all probability, believes that, while the taking of a life might be perceived as a tragic violation of a moral law, in fact that feeling of tragedy is a social construction, which blows away like dust when we die.
And therefore, the murderer most likely believes that the extent of her “wrongdoing” was in the very worst case to violate a supposed “social contract” which unfortunately has no more objective or historical basis than the “moral law” she denies.
Civilization doesn’t have a chance without moral law. The founders knew it.
jeff_from_mpls on February 13, 2010 at 9:44 AM
How dare the southern rednecks deny tenure to a Hawvud grad.
She is from Hawvud and superior. Like the Prof that caused the Cambridge cop to act stupidly.
seven on February 13, 2010 at 10:07 AM
No wonder they denied her tenure.
Wade on February 13, 2010 at 10:38 AM
And if someone else had been carrying, maybe there wouldn’t be 3 dead persons and several more in critical condition. Tenure denied, and should have been her life denied as well.
44Magnum on February 13, 2010 at 10:49 AM
from my post-
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703525704575061893575915602.html?mod=WSJ_WSJ_US_News_5#articleTabs%3Darticle
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/2010/02/12/2010-02-12_shooting_at_university_of_alabamas_huntsville_campus_leaves_3_dead_1_injured_wom.html
Here are the stories. The second has a photo of her being put in a car. She has the “I’m a crazy woman, dont’ “F” with me” look on her face. Too bad for the victims, but it does put a kink into the Haaaavard elite theory that they are incapable of doing anything uncivilized (outside crushing your constitutional rights). I did a little looking around and found her rate my professor link.
http://www.ratemyprofessors.com/ShowRatings.jsp?tid=392617&page=1
Note some of the comments here is one-
“This class was great. Bishop makes the class interesting by talking about her research and her friends research. That speaker she had for class was hard to understand but smart. She expects alot and you need to come to every class and study. She is hot but she tries to hide it.And she is a socialist but she only talks about it after class.”
There was another post, not there now, where the student claims she talked about all the leftist stuff. A real Haaavard type. In her defense, if there is one, apparently she invented something with her husband and claims the university stole the idea for their own use. If so she should sue not shoot. However, if they also denied her tenure, something akin to the Holy Grail for professors, AND stole her money making idea, I think I get why she thinned out the academic herd a little. It still doesn’t get past the fact that an educated, liberal, socialist, Haaaavard graduate woman used a gun to solve a conflict. Gee…could it be that no matter how civilized you are, you are still human? That when pushed to the breaking point all people (save Mother Teresa and Gandhi) react basically in the same way?
This will be interesting in the way the MSM handles it. How far with Keith and Chris take this before they spit it out like a bad tasting pill?
Just saying….
archer52 on February 13, 2010 at 10:50 AM
This makes me want to be a farmer. Or a plumber.
spmat on February 13, 2010 at 11:04 AM
That was my thought. I have no experience in college workings, other than attending as a student. But wouldn’t something like this be discussed privately between the person seeking tenure and their supervisor?
oldleprechaun on February 13, 2010 at 11:17 AM
Obviously, this calls into question the dealy practice of giving tenure to professors
J_Crater on February 13, 2010 at 11:54 AM
+1 !!
ten bucks says the Comrades’ party line will be that since she had a gun ipso facto she was a bitter, clingy conservative
CatchAll on February 13, 2010 at 1:35 PM
Professor had shot and killed her 18-year old brother with a 12-gauge shotgun in 1986. Shooting was ruled an “accident” by the police. Curious.
http://tiny.cc/UAH809
Log on February 13, 2010 at 3:27 PM
It was ruled an accident because
That DA is now Congressman William Delahunt (D), from the 10th district of Massachusetts.
Emperor Norton on February 13, 2010 at 6:19 PM
The Boston Newspapers are saying it WAS NOT AN ACCIDENT
Records missing since 1987?
Shotgun accidentally “went off 3 times “? Come on it’s a PUMP shotgun is she so stupid after the first shot she couldnt figure out what happened, and fired two more rounds and then fled the house with the shotgun?
This is going to go very deep will Scott Brown become involved ?
VIDEO Here
http://www.boston.com/video/viral_page/?/services/player/bcpid21913462001&bctid=66464166001
http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view.bg?articleid=1232703
http://blog.al.com/breaking/2010/02/police_chief_says_uah_shooting.html
http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view.bg?articleid=1232688&pos=breaking
ELMO Q on February 13, 2010 at 7:18 PM
Wow.
YehuditTX on February 13, 2010 at 7:24 PM
Looks like this story will go viral!
http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2010/02/professor_accus.html
Scott Brown will you demand answers?
Her husband runs a lab that employs 3 people an has revenues of 12OK a year?
The Huntsville Sheriff’s dept only can say its a 9 mm but they do not know the make and model ?
Come on…. heck show us a photo, a child could ID the weapon .
Did a few folks know this lady was a WACKO and the university is worried about lawsuits?
Had students or faculty already expressed concerns ( my money is YES they had )
ELMO Q on February 13, 2010 at 7:30 PM
Will ‘going professorial’ now replace ‘going postal’?
Fuquay Steve on February 14, 2010 at 10:55 AM
I can only imagine how that conversation went back when Professor Socialist Moonbat murdered her brother….
(Moonbat) But Mom, why should he get any attention? Look at me, Me, ME!
(Mom) Now dear, everyone knows your brother is more gifted than you. In sports, in academics, in music. Hell, he’s more gifted in everything.
(Moonbat) Nuh-uh! You’re just saying that because he’s a chauvinist male pig, oppressing the rights & aspirations of wymyn everywhere!
(Mom) Now Moonbat, that’s just not so. It’s your insane bitter clinging onto a failed political ideology that’s been proven to be soul-deadening & anti-human that’s causing your brother to outshine you in every aspect.
(Moonbat) hey bro, why don’t you show me how to fir….er, unload this shotgun? BLAM!! (china breaking)
(Moonbat) hold still, my brother! I need your help here! BLAM! (drywall crumbling)
(Moonbat) don’t move you filthy, misogynistic wymyn-hating pig! I am conflicted that I need your man-help to rack this shotgun. The socialist sisters of the world will soon unite in our hatred of pretty haircuts, makeup, flattering clothing and male oppressors! BLAM! (mom screaming)
—————————————–
What? Too soon?
CatchAll on February 14, 2010 at 3:09 PM
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