Female Teacher 'Shot Dead Three Fellow Staff

master_g · Feb 13, 2010

A female teacher has been charged with murder after three fellow staff members were shot dead at a US university.

Authorities said Amy Bishop, a biology professor, opened fire after reportedly being told she would not be given a permanent teaching position. The attack is believed to have taken place during a biology department meeting at the University of Alabama's Huntsville campus.

Three other school employees were injured in the shooting. Bishop has been charged with one count of capital murder, which means she could face the death penalty if convicted. A man, thought to be Bishop's husband, was also in custody. Trent Willis, chief of staff and communications for the city of Huntsville, said: "There are three fatalities and three critical injuries and the suspect is in custody. The campus is in lockdown. We are working to save these lives."
A hospital spokesman later said that two of the injured were in a critical condition and the third was stable.

Huntsville police said all of the dead were faculty members and a witness said the shooting appeared to have taken place during a biology faculty meeting at the university's Shelby Centre. "I heard three shots and screaming," Melanie Gates, an engineering student at the campus said. She was near the exit of the Shelby Centre when the shootings happened and she said the sound of the shots appeared to come from the third floor, where the biology faculty meeting was taking place.

Classes on the campus have been cancelled, and counselling services to the 7,500 students were being offered, according to the university website.There have been a number of deadly school shootings in the United States in recent years, including a rampage at Virginia Tech University in 2007 when a student killed 33 people, including himself.

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/5/20100213/twl-female-teacher-shot-dead-three-fello-3fd0ae9.html

ralphrepo · Feb 13, 2010

Academic tenure is what professors work an entire lifetime towards. I guess the thought of not being able to achieve it, made the woman snap. This sort of thing had already happened in other schools (an example being the Univ of Iowa shooting by Gang Lu, a doctoral physicist that lost out on an academic prize, returned to his alma mater to shoot faculty and the candidate that had beat him for the prize. This story was later loosely used as the basis of the plot in the movie Dark Matter [2007]).

For a quick synopsis, just read the RED LINES

November 3, 1991
Gunman in Iowa Wrote of Plans In Five Letters
By MICHEL MARRIOTT

IOWA CITY, Iowa, Nov. 2— Late Friday afternoon when the University of Iowa was slipping into what students here call "the weekend mode," a brilliant former graduate student in physics stood up during a scheduled meeting in his department and began, without a word, to methodically extinguish some of the brightest minds the campus has known. In a melee of no more than 10 minutes, the student, Gang Lu swiftly moved through two university buildings, seeking out six specific targets and shooting each person at close range with a .38-caliber revolver before fatally turning the weapon on himself, the authorities said here today. Four were killed immediately, a fifth died today and the sixth victim is in critical condition. Mr. Lu, who was also armed with a .22-caliber handgun that apparently was not used in the shootings, believed he had been wronged by the university, investigators said. A prestigious academic award that carried a $1,000 prize was awarded to another physics student, Linhua Shan, who was one of those killed.

University officials said Mr. Lu believed his doctoral dissertation should have earned the prize. J. Patrick White, the Johnson County attorney, added, however, that Mr. Lu's "perceived grievances" were more wide ranging. He refused to elaborate.

Letters Tell of Plans

The discovery of five of Mr. Lu's letters after the shootings has convinced investigators here that he had detailed plans to inflict deadly violence on a number of university employees, Mr. White said at a news conference at the university today. Joined by the University of Iowa's president, Hunter R. Rawlings 3d, and other university officials, Mr. White today painted a portrait of a darkly disturbed man who drove himself to success and to destruction. Despite the perception of Mr. Lu among those who knew him as an outstanding scholar in theoretical space physics, Mr. White indicated that there was a sinister edge to Mr. Lu's character well before the shootings. In the letters, four written in English and intended to be sent to news organizations, and one written in Chinese and intended for his native Beijing, Mr. Lu reportedly named his victims, said William Fuhrmeister, the university's public safety director. None of the letters were ever mailed, the authorities said. Mr. Fuhrmeister, the university's public safety director, said Mr. Lu had left instructions with acquaintances to mail the letters. The letters were apparently turned over to the authorities after the shootings. In the letters, other targets besides the six shooting victims were also named Mr. White said, but he and other officials refused to disclose thier identities. Mr. Fuhrmeister said the letter in Chinese had not yet been translated.

Students Are Horrified

The four men who were killed outright, all members of the department of physics and astronomy, died shortly after they were shot in the head, investigators said. They were Christoph K. Goertz, 47, professor of physics and astronomy; Dwight R. Nicholson, 44, professor and chairman of the department; Robert Alan Smith, associate professor of physics and astronomy, and and Mr. Shan, a research investigator in physics and astronomy who came to the university in 1989. The fifth victim, T. Anne Cleary, 56, associate vice president of academic affairs, died of her wounds early this afternoon, a spokeswoman for the University's hospital, here said. The sixth victim, Miya Rodolfo-Sioson, 23, a receptionist in Ms. Cleary's office, is critical condition, the hospital spokeswoman said. There was no indication if Ms. Rodolfo-Sioson was an intended target, said Mr. White. Students who were drawn from their classrooms by the shooting described the scene as shocking and horrifying. Students said both Van Allen Hall, which houses the Physics Department, and Jessup Hall, the administration building where two people were shot and Mr. Lu took his own life, were filled with blood and confusion.

Today Van Allen Hall named for James Van Allen, a professor at the university who discovered in 1958 the earth's radiation belts since named for him, stood silent and dark. A yellow police tape sealed off the building's many double-doored entrances. Dr. Van Allen a professor emeritus of physics and astronomy, was in the building when the shooting began at 3:42 P.M. "I didn't hear anything," he said. "I was up on the seventh floor doing some work. At about 3:45 P.M. a young colleague of mine dashed into the office and said, 'I recommend you don't open the door until I hear it's O.K.' "

President Rawlings called the shootings a "terrible, terrible tragedy" when he returned to campus from Ohio after he learned of the sudden violence in this ordinary peaceful college town of 50,000 people. Classes will be canceled Monday as investigations continue into the shootings, said Ann Rhodes, vice president of university affairs. University officials could not clearly define Mr. Lu's capacity at the university at the time of the shootings. Mr. Lu who has been a slightly built fixture of scholarship in the corridors and laboratories of the hall was reportedly working in his laboratories. Ms. Rhodes said Mr. Lu received his doctorate degree from the university in May of this year. "He was staying on to do some work in the laboratory while looking for employment," she said. She added that she was unable to say whether Mr. Lu was on the university's payroll.
Mr. Lu, like the slain Mr. Shan, was a native of the People's Republic of China, and both had excelled in the study of physics, said Jack Fix, the associate chairman for astronomy. "He was extremely bright and capable," Dr. Fix said of Mr. Lu. Later he added, that the murders represented a "great professional loss in addition to a great personal loss." Shortly after university officials completed their press conference a number of Chinese students had their own. "Lu was kind of isolated. Don't like to communicate with other students," said Tao An. "It was his personality..."

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/1991/11/03/us/gunman-in-iowa-wrote-of-plans-in-five-letters.html?pagewanted=1
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Sad what academic rejection can do to a person's mind... :tear:

negiqboyz · Feb 15, 2010

I heard about it and apparently, polices are suspecting that she's involved in her little bro's death 19 years ago. If so, this isn't her first time killing.

My professor once told me, tenure isn't given out based on seniority or academic achievement .. more politics. It's not what you do but who you know .. lol .. But based on this lady's behavior and action, not granting her tenure was a good decision. Seriously, who want an outcast on the team. It's like a sore you get ever get rid of if she's granted tenure.

BigC · Feb 15, 2010

Here is a pic of the female teacher. She doesn't look too friendly...

ralphrepo · Feb 16, 2010

Well, it seems that the more they dig, the more they find out about this "genius" and the type of person that she is: -huh

For a quick synopsis, just read the RED LINES.

Twists Multiply in Alabama Shooting Case
By SHAILA DEWAN and KATIE ZEZIMA
February 15, 2010

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — On Friday, this city of rocket scientists and brainy inventors was stunned when a neuroscientist with a Harvard Ph.D. was arrested in the shooting deaths of three of her colleagues after she was denied tenure. But that was only the first surprise in the tale of the neuroscientist, Amy Bishop, who was regarded as fiercely intelligent and had seemed to have a promising career in biotechnology. Every day since has produced a new revelation from Dr. Bishop’s past, each more bizarre than the last. On Saturday, the police in Braintree, Mass., said that she had fatally shot her brother in 1986 and questioned whether the decision to dismiss the case as an accident had been the right one. On Sunday, a law enforcement official in Boston said she and her husband, James Anderson, had been questioned in a 1993 case in which a pipe bomb was sent to a colleague of Dr. Bishop’s at Children’s Hospital Boston. The bomb did not go off, no one was ever charged in the case, and no proof ever emerged connecting the couple to the bomb plot.

On Sunday, Mr. Anderson firmly defended his wife in an interview at their home in Huntsville, saying that she had been completely cleared in the pipe bomb case and that her brother’s death had been accidental. “That’s incorrect,” he said about reports linking him and his wife to the bomb plot. “We were not suspects. They questioned everybody that ever knew this guy.” The target of the mail bomb was Dr. Paul Rosenberg, according to The Boston Globe, which first reported that the couple had been questioned in the case. After returning home from a vacation, Dr. Rosenberg opened a package that contained two 6-inch pipe bombs connected to two nine-volt batteries, The Globe reported. The doctor and his wife fled and called the police. Officials said that Dr. Bishop was concerned that Dr. Rosenberg would give her a negative evaluation on her doctorate work, the newspaper wrote, and that they were concerned about the incident involving her brother.

The authorities in Boston searched Dr. Bishop’s computer at the time and found a novel she was working on about a scientist who killed her brother and atoned by excelling at her work,The Globe reported.

Though he firmly protested his wife’s innocence in the earlier cases, Mr. Anderson said he remained mystified over Friday’s shootings, which left three professors dead and three other people wounded after a faculty meeting at the University of Alabama, Huntsville. Dr. Bishop was charged with capital murder; three charges of attempted murder were added on Sunday. Mr. Anderson said he did not know of any specific incident that could have led to the shooting, and did not know that his wife allegedly had a gun when she went to the meeting. “I had no idea,” he said. “We don’t own one.”

Those killed were Gopi Podila, 52, the chairman of the biology department; Maria Ragland Davis, 50, a professor who studied plant pathogens; and Adriel Johnson, 52, a cell biologist who also taught Boy Scouts about science. Two of the wounded were Joseph Leahy, 50, a microbiologist, and Stephanie Monticciolo, 62, a staff assistant, both of whom were in critical condition. The third was Luis Cruz-Vera, 40, a molecular biologist, who was released from the hospital on Saturday. Mr. Anderson said that months ago, the university administration overruled a successful appeal of the decision to deny Dr. Bishop tenure in spring 2009. “She won her appeal,” he said, “and the provost canned it.” The university has declined to elaborate on the details of Dr. Bishop’s tenure application, saying only that she was denied last spring and that she could stay at the university only until the end of this academic year. Even if a faculty member successfully appeals a tenure denial, the final decision rests with the administration.

But Dr. Bishop had continued to fight, appealing to two members of the University of Alabama System’s Board of Trustees for help and hiring a lawyer, who was “finding one problem after another with the process,” Mr. Anderson said. One issue was a dispute over whether two of her papers had been published in time to count toward tenure, he said. “She exceeded the qualifications for tenure,” Mr. Anderson said. “The review board said, ‘Grant it or go through the process again.’ ”

Mr. Anderson said that his wife’s research was generating millions of dollars for the university, that she had published numerous papers and that she was a good teacher. But that estimate of her financial benefit to the university seems likely to be premature. One of her innovations, an automated system for producing cell cultures that the couple developed together, has attracted $1.25 million in financing but has not yet reached the market. Another, a potential treatment for degenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s, is in the process of being licensed from the university. Typically, universities share the proceeds from such licenses with the scientists responsible. The police said Saturday that Dr. Bishop was 45, but her birth date on a university Web site indicated that she was 44. Mr. Anderson said he could not gain access to his wife’s e-mail account and did not know if she had received any news that might have set off the shooting. The police, he said, had taken a thick binder documenting her tenure battle, her computer and the family van. At least one of the trustees had recently told her that he could not help reverse the tenure decision, a family friend said.

Mr. Anderson said he had already told the Huntsville police that they might come across the Boston pipe bomb incident during their investigation. Sylvia Fluckiger, who worked as a laboratory technician at Children’s Hospital when Dr. Bishop and Dr. Rosenberg were working there, said Dr. Bishop had acknowledged that she was questioned by the police about the pipe bomb incident. “She was visited by the police,” Ms. Fluckiger said. “What she said is they asked her if she had ever used a stamp, taken it off an envelope and put it somewhere else.” Ms. Fluckiger said Dr. Bishop “had a smirk on her face” when asked about the incident. “I don’t know why she was smirking,” she said. “It was a funny expression on her face.”
“We did know that there was a dispute between Paul Rosenberg and her,” Ms. Fluckiger said, adding that she could not recall the details.

On Saturday, the police in Braintree said they were considering reopening the case of the shooting death of her brother, Seth Bishop, 18. Although a state police report said investigators determined that the shooting was an accident, Police Chief Paul Frazier said other officers remember that it came after an argument and questioned why local police documents could not be found. On Sunday, Mayor Joseph C. Sullivan of Braintree, a Boston suburb, issued a statement saying the town would conduct a “full and thorough review” of its records for any material relating to Seth Bishop’s death. But he noted that records from 1986 were created and maintained manually, which would complicate their retrieval. Standing at his door after church on Sunday, Mr. Anderson confirmed the existence of the novel reported in The Globe, as well as two others his wife worked on in her spare time. The couple has four children, ranging from grade-school to college age. Mr. Anderson said that somewhere in his files he had a letter sent by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms after the bomb investigation, saying: “You are hereby cleared in this incident. You are no longer a subject of the investigation.” “This is one thing from the past I hoped would not be dredged up,” he said. Shaila Dewan reported from Huntsville, and Katie Zezima from Boston.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/15/us/15alabama.html?scp=1&sq=teacher shooting alabama&st=cse
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master_g · Feb 16, 2010

just put her in a war zone

Akki · Feb 16, 2010

i heard this on the radio a few days back while driving, yes i listen to news while on the road sometimes.... lol

That is pretty nuts, over tenure.....?

ralphrepo · Feb 17, 2010

AkkiOnimusha said: ↑

i heard this on the radio a few days back while driving, yes i listen to news while on the road sometimes.... lol

That is pretty nuts, over tenure.....?
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Tenure in academia, is essentially passing probation; if you get tenure, you get to keep your job. But if you're not granted tenure within a certain number of years, then that means you're basically fired. Once a professor is not granted tenure at one university, it is without a doubt, almost impossible for him or her to get another job at another university. In other words, your career is over. :ugh:

[mJ9] · Feb 17, 2010

Sometimes,it makes people think why you have to get a degree(god,she has a Ph.D) and then,you don't get the merit...

negiqboyz · Feb 18, 2010

[mJ9];826272 said:

Sometimes,it makes people think why you have to get a degree(god,she has a Ph.D) and then,you don't get the merit...
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You know ... just cuz someone has honorable abbr after their names, don't make them smart or a good person per se. Not all went through hell for schooling too .. so yeah .. some simply don't deserve merit.

Minority on the other hands is oppt and often the victim .. the usual motto .. American don't like smart ass so you don't go anywhere far .. lol

Female Teacher 'Shot Dead Three Fellow Staff

master_g .

ralphrepo Well-Known Member

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master_g .

Akki ...

ralphrepo Well-Known Member

[mJ9] Well-Known Member

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