Slayings Still Haunt Law School Shooter

boston.com ^ | June 11, 2004 | Chris Kahn

[texasguitarslim]

DUBLIN, Va. --Peter Odighizuwa spends most of his time in a cramped jail cell, alone with the delusions that fed his deadly shooting spree at a fledgling law school.

In his first extended interview, Odighizuwa told The Associated Press he thinks often of the 2002 rampage, when he killed the school's dean, a professor and a student and wounded three other students, though he has trouble explaining why he did it.

"I really don't know what happened," Odighizuwa said Tuesday. "I feel like I'm God sometimes, and I was running demons out of the school. It was like an exorcism."

Understanding Odighizuwa, who has been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, remains an important issue for his victims and the Appalachian School of Law. The 46-year-old Nigerian native is now the focus of lawsuits that could force his former school to pay $23 million.

The lawsuits, filed by the family of slain student Angela Dales and by the wounded students, Rebecca Brown, Stacey Beans and Madeline Short, claim school officials knew Odighizuwa had a history of outbursts, and should have realized he was a threat.

[texasguitarslim]

This story amazes me. I first became aware of it when I read a column by Larry Elder from Wednesday, February 13, 2002 called, The media that couldn't shoot straight, found online at: http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=26458

Mr. Elder gave fairly detailed information about how the shooter was stopped on January 16, 2002. A student named Tracy Bridges was in a classroom across from where the first professor was shot. Bridges happened to be an off-duty cop. Bridges went to his car to get his gun then used his weapon and verbal commands to stop Odighizuwa. Simply put, one armed student stopped another student who was on a killing spree.

Elder's column gave some interesting statistics about how the media covered this incident. It's no surprise that very few news stories actually mentioned the fact that Odighizuwa was stopped by another student with a gun.

Now, let's go back to the recent article. If, as the lawsuit against the school contends, "Odighizuwa was allowed to re-enroll after flunking out because he was one of the school's few black students and administrators were desperate to show diversity," then doesn't this demonstrate that guns really don't kill people, but political correctness does?

[Diogenesis]

Another illegal alien makes "good".

A future candidate for the US Courts?

[sadimgnik]

I'm sorry - but your prejudice is showing.

As I understand it, he was a foreign student, legitimately in the US on a student visa.

Just WHERE does it say he was an 'illegal alien'?

If you ever want to lose that barrel, you'll have to get some intellectual honesty yourself.

Sadim

[Diogenesis]

"The 46-year-old Nigerian native ....."

The article calls him a "Nigerian native" meaning he is
grounded in, lives in, and is a citizen of .... Nigeria.

[metesky]

You're dealing with The Boston Globe.
They're trying to put a shine on a sneaker.

"Murderer tries to turn his life around"

[sadimgnik]

"The 46-year-old Nigerian native ....."
The article calls him a "Nigerian native" meaning he is
grounded in, lives in, and is a citizen of .... Nigeria.

---

Yes .. but that is an ENTIRELY different thing to being an illegal alien.

Again, I undertsand he was an overseas student, studying in the US, on a valid student Visa.

For you to call him an 'illegal alien' makes me wonder how many other freepers think that ANY non-citizen living in the US is an 'illegal alien'.

And once you lift THAT rock, you have to wonder what 'illegal alien' is actually a euphemism for ...

Sadim

[Trickyguy]

Here's some intellecual honesty. Every Nigerian I've met in the US has been a liar and a thief. And the one in this article is a mass murderer.

[Brilliant]

Awwww... Poor baby...

[Diogenesis]

You understand? How? Do you work for the Boston Globe?

[kaboom]

Well, he is an alien (not from the US) and he committed an illegal act (killing people), so he most definitely meets the qualifications for an illegal alien.

[hellinahandcart]

Slayings Still Haunt Law School Shooter

One would hope so, since it's barely been two years since the murders.

However, after reading the entire article, it's clear he thinks the victims deserved it-- either for being "mean to him" or "menacing" or "FBI and CIA agents".

So boston.com has made a vain plea for our sympathy, with that wretched title.

[hellinahandcart]

Actually you're both wrong, he was a naturalized citizen since the late eighties.

Which means he could have been a beneficiary of Reagan's amnesty, but there's no way to know at this point...

[bigcat00]

As sad as this situation is, I must admit that I enjoy the irony of a law school being on the receiving end of a bunch of personal injury suits under the theory that it should have known this guy was a nut case and protected its students from him.

[Dick Vomer]

I've got to admit ...... future lawyers shooting lawyers..... "How... awful!"......(yawn, sip soda, click on next story.... smile)

[Darnright]

Here's some background on this case:

What really happened is that a man named Peter Odighizuwa, a native of Nigeria who had flunked out of Appalachian twice, blew away a professor at the school, a student and the dean who had admitted him to the school a second time after he had flunked out once. The dean happened to be a former official in the Clinton Justice Department, a Harvard Law School graduate and something of a professional do-gooder.

The dean who was shot was Anthony Sutin, who, after a prominent career as a Washington lawyer representing mainly liberal Democrats and working in the Justice Department under Janet Reno, took up his position at the Appalachian law school in 1999. He adopted one child from Russia and a second from China, and he accepted the Appalachian position apparently because he wanted to help the underprivileged. The law school was founded to help mainly poor white students from the region.

Everyone who knew Peter Odighizuwa knew he didn't belong there. He didn't belong intellectually and he didn't belong mentally. Everyone who knew him knew he was unbalanced. "Everybody knows this guy," said one doctor who helped clean up the slaughter Mr. Odighizuwa left behind him. "He is a walking time bomb." "He just thought everyone was conspiring against him," said a student who knew him.

So why, when he flunked out of the school the first time, did Dean Sutin let him reenter? Perhaps, being a liberal, he didn't want to admit the fact that the murderer never belonged at a law school, any law school, in the first place. Sutin had racial prejudice, and it cost him, and 2 others, their lives.

[sadimgnik]

You understand? How? Do you work for the Boston Globe?

---

No - but I remember when the story first broke (here on freerepublic, as a matter of fact).