A former Army National Guard member who had spent eight years in prison for attempting to aid ISIS opened fire on a classroom at Virginia's Old Dominion University on Thursday before ROTC students subdued and killed him, authorities said. He had yelled "Allahu Akbar" before the shooting, which left one person dead and two wounded, according to the FBI. Dominique Evans, special agent in charge of the FBI's Norfolk field office, said at a news conference that the Reserve Officers' Training Corps students showed "extreme bravery and courage" and prevented further loss of life by stopping the gunman, Mohamed Bailor Jalloh, the AP reports.
- The students subdued him and "rendered him no longer alive," Evans said. "I don't know how else to say it." She confirmed Jalloh wasn't shot but didn't provide further details.
The campus shooting is being investigated as an act of terrorism, FBI Director Kash Patel said Thursday. Evans said Jalloh aspired to conduct a terrorist attack like the 2009 killings at Fort Hood. Jalloh pleaded guilty in 2016 to attempting to aid the Islamic State and was sentenced to 11 years in prison. He was on supervised release, which is comparable to probation, when he carried out the attack on Thursday. It wasn't immediately clear why his release from prison had been moved up. Inmates can get time off of their sentences for a variety of reasons, but it isn't known if that happened in this case, the AP reports.
- Ashraf Nubani, a Virginia attorney who represented Jalloh in his 2016 criminal case, said in a statement that he'd had no recent contact with Jalloh and had no information about Thursday's events. "Any loss of life is tragic, and violence against innocent people is completely contrary to Islamic teachings and basic human morality," Nubani added.
- Jalloh was a naturalized US citizen from Sierra Leone. The Virginia Army National Guard confirmed he served as a specialist from 2009 until 2015, when he was honorably discharged.
- The Justice Department in 2017 requested a 20-year prison sentence for Jalloh, noting that he had attempted to acquire a gun to carry out a murder plot in the United States. Jalloh's lawyers requested a 6½-year prison sentence and placement in a facility with residential drug abuse treatment.
- US District Judge Liam O'Grady sentenced him instead to 11 years in prison with credit for time served and five years of supervised release. He also ordered Jalloh to participate in programs for substance abuse and mental health treatment. Based on his release date, he would have been under supervised release until 2029. Inmates convicted of terrorism-related offenses are not eligible to reduce their sentences for good behavior or participation in a residential drug abuse treatment program.
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