Posted on 01/17/2002 9:49:39 PM PST by Scalia Rules
MSNBC STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS
GRUNDY, Va., Jan. 17 — A former law student who is accused of killing his dean, a law professor and another student told a judge Thursday that he is sick and needs help.
PETER ODIGHIZUWA shuffled into Buchanan County General District Court in leg chains, surrounded by police officers.
Hiding his face behind his green arrest warrant, Odighizuwa told Judge Patrick Johnson, “I was supposed to see my doctor. He was supposed to help me out. ... I don’t have my medication.”
Odighizuwa, a 43-year-old naturalized U.S. citizen from Nigeria, went to the Appalachian School of Law on Wednesday to talk to his dean, L. Anthony Sutin, about Odighizuwa’s dismissal for failing grades, officials said. He shot Sutin and professor Thomas Blackwell, who taught Odighizuwa’s contracts classes, with a .380-caliber pistol, authorities and students said.
Also killed was student Angela Dales, 33, said State Police spokesman Mike Stater. Three other students were injured and were hospitalized in fair condition.
Prosecutors charged Odighizuwa with three counts of capital murder, three counts of attempted capital murder and six charges for use of a firearm in a felony.
A few minutes before his arraignment, Odighizuwa told reporters as he was led into the courtroom, “I was sick, I was sick. I need help.”
When Johnson said he would appoint lawyer James C. Turk Jr. to represent him, Odighizuwa asked for another attorney. But Johnson appointed Turk and said, “Once you’ve talked with him, I’m sure you’ll see he can help you.”
Odighizuwa will remain held without bond pending a preliminary hearing March 21.
STUDENT INTERVENTION
Students ended the rampage by confronting and then tackling the gunman, officials said.
“We saw the shooter, stopped at my vehicle and got out my handgun and started to approach Peter,” Tracy Bridges, who helped subdue the shooter with other students, said Thursday on NBC’s “Today” show. “At that time, Peter threw up his hands and threw his weapon down. Ted was the first person to have contact with Peter, and Peter hit him one time in the face, so there was a little bit of a struggle there.”
The suspect, known on the rural campus as “Peter O.,” had been struggling with his grades for more than a year and had been dismissed once before.
Chris Clifton, the school’s financial aid officer, met with Odighizuwa on Tuesday. “He was angry. He thought he was being treated unfairly, and he wanted to see his transcript,” said Clifton.
“I don’t think Peter knew at this time that it (his dismissal) was going to be permanent and final,” Clifton added.
NEW LAW SCHOOL
The private law school has an enrollment of about 170 students. It opened five years ago in a renovated junior high school to help ease a shortage of lawyers in the region and foster renewal in Appalachia.
Sutin, a 1984 graduate of Harvard Law School, also was an associate professor at the school. He left the Justice Department to help found the school. Previously, he had worked for the Democratic National Committee and Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign, according to the Web site of Jurist, the Legal Education Network.
Attorney General John Ashcroft issued a statement expressing his condolences to Sutin’s wife and their two children.
Former Attorney General Janet Reno called Sutin (pronounced Sutton) “not only a former colleague but a friend” and “an incredibly kind, exceptionally bright and intensely dedicated public servant who was committed to bettering the welfare of all Americans.”
“It’s real shocking right now,” said Bridges. “Dean Sutin had children and everyone’s worried about that. It seems kind of surreal right now.”
MSNBC.com’s Alex Johnson, and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Posted 1/17/2002 04:47:43 PM by Glenn Reynolds, Professor of Law, University of Tennessee
FROM A LAW PROFESSOR'S EMAIL LIST comes this word that the Grundy shooter was stopped by a student with a handgun:
Students ended the rampage by confronting and then tackling the gunman, officials said.
“We saw the shooter, stopped at my vehicle and got out my handgun and started to approach Peter,” Tracy Bridges, who helped subdue the shooter with other students, said Thursday on NBC’s “Today” show. “At that time, Peter threw up his hands and threw his weapon down. Ted was the first person to have contact with Peter, and Peter hit him one time in the face, so there was a little bit of a struggle there.”
Very interesting. Believe it or not, some law professors on the list are actually suggesting that it would be a good idea if people with handgun carry licenses carried guns at school.
Where some of my colleagues are concerned, I'd find that very comforting. With others, well. . . .
Posted 1/17/2002 09:06:29 PM by Glenn Reynolds I MENTIONED THAT LAW PROFESSORS ARE WRITING EACH OTHER about the shooting at Appalachian Law School in Grundy. Here is something terrific that Eugene Volokh [of UCLA] wrote (originally for the LAWPROF email list) on the student heroes. It's reproduced with his permission.
These are real heroes, and I'm proud that I will soon have them as fellow members of my profession -- a profession which sometimes demands great courage of its members. I think the AALS should recognize their courage with some suitable award (perhaps named after Thurgood Marshall or some other lawyer who has put his life, liberty, or livelihood in peril to do what is right).
Let me also mention one other item. View the video on MSNBC, and notice your first reactions to the student being interviewed. I am sorry to say that my first observations were that he was somewhat plump, that he wore an unfashionable haircut, and that he spoke with what is in many of our circles an unfashionable accent. I wish that I hadn't noticed these things, but somehow automatically managed to ignore them -- my reactions do not reflect well on me. But there they are. The man did not look particularly impressive, or lawyerly, or otherwise extraordinary.
And yet he is extraordinary. He, together with his fellow students, confronted a gun-wielding murderer in order to save the lives of others. He didn't have to do this; it wasn't his job; he wasn't defending himself; he could have so easily just left the scene and avoided the risk; no-one would have condemned him had he done so. But he came back and risked death. Do I have this capacity? Does any of us? Most of us don't know, and probably will never know. None of my prejudices or first impressions could have revealed this capacity of his to me. Sometimes the hero looks like Gary Cooper in High Noon. More often he looks like a random guy in western Virginia.
Of course, denouncing prejudice is cliche to the point of banality. We're constantly told of the evil of judging people by their appearance. But of course we do it nonetheless -- and prejudice against the fat and against supposed "hicks" is, in my experience, a common prejudice in the very circles where other forms of prejudice are often vehemently condemned.
I hope that when I find myself falling prey to this tendency again, I'll remember this student and what he did -- and wonder again whether I, with my intellectual-class manners, would have had the courage to do the same.
OH MY GOD not a HANDGUN!!! This person should be taken instantly to a reeducation camp to learn the evils of owning a handgun.
Took the words right off'n my keyboard. The next notice we get of this will be impassioned letters to the editor demanding the prosecution of the guy who had the gun in his car.
1. If you believe that gun laws will eliminate guns then you must also believe that there is no cocaine in the United States. There can't be. It is a felony to own even the smallest amount of cocaine under federal law and the laws of all 50 states. Therefore, if you accept the logic of gun control, there cannot be any cocaine.
The FACT is that no laws will prevent criminals from owning and using guns any more than any drug laws have prevented criminals from owning and using illegal drugs.
2. Given No.1, the only effect that gun control laws can have is to turn law abiding citizens into defenseless sheep, at the mercy of criminals who don't care whether or not it is against the law for them to own or use a gun.
No matter what gun laws could possibly have been in effect, the shooter in this case would have been able to buy an illegal gun and used it. It was only because one of the students had access to a gun that the shooter was stopped. If several of the students had been carrying concealed guns, then the shooter would have been stopped sooner.
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