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The shooter who opened fire in a classroom at Virginia’s Old Dominion University on Thursday in an attack being investigated as an act of terrorism had a gun with an obliterated serial number, potentially complicating investigators’ efforts to determine how the man with a previous felony conviction obtained a firearm, according to a law enforcement official.
Investigators will have to try to re-surface the number in order to trace the gun, according to the official, who spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the ongoing investigation.
The FBI identified the shooter as Mohamed Bailor Jalloh, a former Army National Guard member who pleaded guilty in 2016 to attempting to aid the Islamic State.
Jalloh, who yelled “Allahu akbar” before opening fire, was subdued and killed by ROTC students, according to FBI officials who praised the students’ bravery for preventing further harm. The shooting killed an ROTC leader who was a professor of military science at ODU, and left two others hurt.
Jalloh had been sentenced to 11 years in prison and was released from federal custody in December 2024. He was on supervised release, which is comparable to probation.
It wasn’t immediately clear why his release from prison was moved up. Inmates can get time off their sentences for a variety of reasons, but it wasn’t immediately clear if that happened in his case.
Old Dominion University Police Chief Garrett Shelton said less than 10 minutes passed between when officers were called about a shooting in the university’s business school building and when responders determined the shooter was dead.
Lt. Col. Jimmy Delongchamp, public information officer for the U.S. Army Cadet Command at Fort Knox, Kentucky, told The Associated Press that two of the people who were shot were part of the Army ROTC at ODU. ROTC is a program where students receive a scholarship to attend college while training to become commissioned officers in the U.S. military.
Voorhees University in South Carolina confirmed the victim who died was Lt. Col. Brandon Shah, the son-in-law of a Voorhees trustee.
Shah attended ODU as an ROTC student, according to his biography on the university’s website, and had returned in 2022 as a leader for the program. In the Army, Shah piloted helicopters over Iraq, Afghanistan and Eastern Europe.
The shooter also had a background in military service. Jalloh, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Sierra Leone, served as a specialist with the Virginia Army National Guard from 2009 until 2015, when he was honorably discharged.
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Durkin Richer reported from Washington. Associated Press reporters Michael Biesecker in Washington, Michael R. Sisak in New York City and Olivia Diaz in Richmond, Virginia, contributed.
