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On January 16, 2002, 43-year-old Peter Odighizuwa, a Nigerian student at the Appalachian School of Law, arrived on the campus.

Odighizuwa first discussed his academic problems with professor Dale Rubin, where he reportedly told Rubin to pray for him. Odighizuwa then walked to the offices of Dean Anthony Sutin and Professor Thomas Blackwell, where he opened fire on them with a .380 ACP semi-automatic handgun. According to a county coroner, powder burns indicated that both victims were shot at point blank range.[4] Also killed along with the two faculty members was a student, Angela Denise Dales, age 33. Three other people were wounded.

Students subdued the shooter When Odighizuwa exited the building where the shooting took place, he was approached by two students with personal firearms.

At the first sound of gunfire, fellow students Tracy Bridges and Mikael Gross, unbeknownst to each other, ran to their vehicles to fetch their personally-owned firearms. Gross, a police officer with the Grifton Police Department in his home state of North Carolina, retrieved a 9 mm pistol and body armour. Bridges pulled his .357 Magnum pistol from beneath the driver’s seat of his Chevy Tahoe. As Bridges later told the Richmond Times Dispatch, he was prepared to shoot to kill.

Bridges and Gross approached Odighizuwa from different angles, with Bridges yelling at Odighizuwa to drop his gun. Odighizuwa then dropped his firearm and was subdued by several other unarmed students, including Ted Besen and Todd Ross.