The gunman who opened fire on an Old Dominion University classroom was previously convicted of supporting ISIS and, according to court documents, was on probation for that terrorism-related charge when he carried out Thursday’s deadly attack.
One person was killed and two other people were injured in the shooting. The suspect, identified by an FBI spokesman as Mohamed Bailor Jalloh, 36, was also killed.
The mortally wounded victim was identified as Brandon A. Shah, an Army lieutenant colonel. Army Secretary Dan Driscoll said the two people injured at the university were Army personnel.
The attack at the campus in Norfolk, Virginia, is being investigated as an act of terrorism, FBI officials said. Jalloh pleaded guilty a decade ago to attempting to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization, ISIS.
Dominique Evans, special agent in charge of the agency's Norfolk field office, said he shouted "Allahu Akbar" and was subdued by students who "rendered him no longer alive."
Jalloh served in the Virginia National Guard from 2009 to 2015 as a combat engineer, military officials said. He had no deployments and was honorably discharged, the officials said.
He was arrested the next year on the terrorism charge, court documents show.
Jalloh pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 11 years in prison and five years of probation. He was also ordered to participate in a computer monitoring program, according to a transcript of his sentencing.
He was released in 2024. The federal probation office that appeared to oversee his supervised release did not immediately respond Thursday to a message seeking comment.
According to a government sentencing memo, Jalloh sent gift card codes to an undercover FBI employee who he believed was a member of the Islamic State terrorist, also known as ISIS. He traveled to North Carolina in 2016 to try to buy an AK-47 for what the memo described as a "plot to murder US military personnel."
The owner refused to sell it, according to the memo, and Jalloh bought an AR-15 at a gun store. He was arrested the next day.
In a separate sentencing memo, his defense team described his "radical ideals" as a shallow search for identity and purpose that did not represent a commitment to violence. He took responsibility for the crime, the memo argues, and his interactions with ISIS operatives and the FBI demonstrated his “gullibility, impressionability, lack of sophistication, and passivity."
Jalloh’s life was marked by “war, trauma, violence, sexual abuse, and significant cultural and familial dislocation,” the memo says, adding that he was a “bright, capable, hard-working, and kind man who had a promising future prior to his dalliance with extremism."
One of his attorneys, Ashraf Nubani, said Thursday that he'd had no contact with Jalloh since he represented him and that he had no information about the shooting at Old Dominion.
"Any loss of life is tragic, and violence against innocent people is completely contrary to Islamic teachings and basic human morality," Nubani wrote in an email.
At his sentencing, Jalloh told the judge that “this entire crime is not who I am, it’s not who I plan to be, and it’s not who I have been.”
“I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my life, but this mistake of giving any support to the violent and extreme organization ISIS has been the most devastating one I have ever decided to make in my life,” he said.
Jalloh apologized to the court, the military and the people of the United States and said: "Every time I see any atrocities that ISIS commits, I am disgusted by it because I know this is not what I want to be a part of.”
