6 shot, 3 dead at Virginia law school

http://www.msnbc.com ^ | GRUNDY, Va., Jan. 16

[ATOMIC_PUNK]

GRUNDY, Va., Jan. 16 —  A student who had been suspended earlier in the day was in custody Wednesday after a gunman opened fire at Appalachian School of Law in western Virginia, killing two faculty members and a student and wounding three other students. Among the dead was the school’s dean, a former Clinton administration official who was “executed in his office,” a doctor said.DEAN L. ANTHONY SUTIN and the other faculty member, identified as Professor Thomas Blackwell, were shot at close range as they sat in their offices, said Dr. Jack Briggs, the first physician on the scene. The gunman then walked downstairs and began firing randomly, Briggs said in an interview with CNN, adding that the injured students had been critically wounded.
       NBC affiliate WCYB-TV in Bristol, Va., reported that other students managed to tackle the gunman shortly after he opened fire in a common area.
       Peter Odighizuma, 43, described as a Nigerian exchange student, was being held in the Buchanan County jail but had not yet been charged, police said.
       “He was suspended from school effective today for some unknown reason and came back,” Virginia State Police Lt. Jason Miles told Reuters. “He used a .380 semiautomatic handgun.”

CAMPUS EVACUATED
       Alicia O’Quin, a special assistant to Sutin, told Reuters that the gunman entered a student lounge area about 1 p.m. ET and opened fire. She said it was unclear how many people were in the lounge at the time.
       Police and ambulances rushed to the scene, and the campus was evacuated, she said. The private law school was closed for the rest of the week.
       “Nothing like this has ever happened before, either here or even in this county. It’s usually a very quiet campus, very intimate,” said O’Quin, adding that there were only about 240 students on the campus. Grundy resident Tiffany Street, 20, told The Associated Press, “There were fire trucks, ambulances, state police and cops all heading toward the school.
       “I’ve never seen anything like this,” said Street, who works at a nearby motel. “Grundy’s a very small town, and I’ve been here all my life.”
       Justin Marlowe, a first-year law student from Richwood, W.Va., said the suspect had been in all of his classes.
       “He was a real quiet guy who kept to himself. He didn’t talk to anybody, but he gave no indication that he was capable of something like this,” Marlowe said.
       Briggs told CNN that he had previously treated the suspect for stress. “I had no idea that it would affect him this way,” Briggs said. “However, he was a time bomb waiting to go off.”

CLINTON ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL
       Sutin, an election law specialist widely quoted during the legal struggle in Florida after the 2000 presidential campaign, was deputy associate attorney general and the Justice Department’s acting director of legislative affairs during the Clinton administration. He served in legal positions with the 1992 Clinton-Gore presidential campaign and with the Democratic National Committee Sutin (pronounced Sutton) was “very well respected,” said the Rev. Charles Lees, dean of Grundy Bible Institute, who spent much of Wednesday counseling students and staff at the law school.
       “The Appalachian Law School is a new school, and he has worked very hard to get it developed,” Lees said in an interview with MSNBC.
       Virginia Gov. Mark Warner, a member of the school’s board until his inauguration Sunday, said he was shocked and saddened.
       “I commend the students who acted swiftly to apprehend the suspect, who is now in custody,” Warner said. “My heart goes out to the school and the community. I know that such a close-knit community will feel such a tragedy especially deeply.”
       Attorney General John Ashcroft said in a statement, “My thoughts and prayers go out to Mr. Sutin’s wife, Margaret, their two children and to all of their family and friends.”
       The law school, which is near the Kentucky border in the Appalachian foothills, opened in 1997 in a renovated junior high school. Its enrollment is about 170.

MSNBC.com’s Alex Johnson, The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

[SunStar]

...a gunman opened fire at Appalachian School of Law in western Virginia, killing two faculty members and a student and wounding three other students.

Hmm... Up until this point, the major news media has been referring to this incident as a "school shooting". Biased bastards.

[xp38]

Prayers for the victims. May those injured recover speedily.

[crystalk]

This school was opened to give educational opportunities to poor whites in one of the remotest areas in the USA.

What on earth was a MUSLIM NIGERIAN aged 43, doing on this campus?

[ThePoetsRaven]

By an immigrant. Probably illegal. And probably being aided by the government.

[Teacup]

I saw that on the local news. The dean was a Clinton supporter. The student was angry over his grades. WOW!!!

[absalom01]

As correct as your observations are, and at the risk of being redundant, the fact remains that those people would be alive today if victim No. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, or a passerby was trained, armed, and alert. The immigration issue is an interesting side point, but the centeral crux of this is that this terrible crime was entirely preventable.

[mountaineer]

You'll find foreign students from the most remote countries studying at these little colleges because their tuition is paid in full either by their own government or through some U.S. federal government aid program or another. The Americans who go to such podunk schools, on the other hand, usually have borrowed up to their eyebrows or have to secure some kind of tuition discount or grants. It's no wonder the schools like to have the full-fare foreigners. Although the little college in my W.Va. town doesn't have a law school or other post-graduate courses, that's the way it is here.

[thathamiltonwoman]

This is terrible. I know one of the staff members and all the folks at Appalachian Law are just the nicest people. What a horror for the families.

[Tacis]

"...Clinton administration official who was “executed in his office,” a doctor said."

I wonder if Willie could have used a Nigerian hit man to do Vince Foster? Same guy, ya' think?

[Teacup]

Here is more from another local newspaper.

Shooting at Va. Law School Kills 3

GRUNDY, Va. (AP) — A struggling Nigerian law school student went on a campus shooting spree Wednesday, killing the dean, a professor and a student before he was tackled by students, authorities said. (snip)

The 42-year-old suspect, Peter Odighizuwa, had arrived at school to meet with the dean about his academic suspension, which went into effect Wednesday, State Police spokesman Mike Stater said.

Odighizuwa first stopped in the office of Professor Dale Rubin to talk about his grades and as he left reportedly asked Rubin to pray for him, police said.

He then walked to Sutin's and Blackwell's offices and shot them with a .380-caliber pistol, Stater said. Witnesses said Odighizuwa then went downstairs into a common area and opened fire on a crowd of students, killing Dales and seriously wounding three others.

Looks to me like he was Nigerian.

[Amore]

Here's a couple of discussions about it from this afternoon:

first link and

second link

(They had different titles)

[marktwain]

When I was in graduate school, we had many foreign students. Unlike many Americans, their whole life was wrapped up in how they did. For them is was virtually life or death. They could not face the possibility of going back to their impoverished country, with all of their extended family depending on them, having failed. Some professors took advantage of this. The foreign graduate students became part time servants for them, doing chores, doing whatever was necessary to please the proffessor. They were terrified of failure.

[FITZ]

Was the Nigerian a Muslim? Either way, why is a 43 year old not working but sitting around in school and who is paying his way? Our government is very careful to do background checks on all US citizens who want to exercise their 2nd amendment rights but the foreigners can just enter this country as they wish and do what they wish with no checks done on them at all.

[mountaineer]

That's a shame. What a disservice to all the students.

[ATOMIC_PUNK]

why do they change the titles? This is the actual one on the site SHEESH

[ATOMIC_PUNK]

This school was opened to give educational opportunities to poor whites in one of the remotest areas in the USA.

SHHHHH dont tell the naacp or aclu you know this !!

[Fifth Business]

Perhaps it was actually a .3,800,000 caliber machine pistol.