301 Sparkman Dr NW, Huntsville, AL 35899
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Author: Jewls Krueger
On the afternoon of February 12, 2010, a Harvard-trained biology professor named Amy Bishop opened fire on her colleagues during a routine biology department faculty meeting at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, killing three and wounding three others. Statistically, it is rare for a school shooter to be a female, and even rarer for one to be a staff member.
On February 12, 2010, the University of Alabama Huntsville biology department was having a routine meeting on the third floor of the Shelby Center for Science and Technology, attended by about 12 professors and department staff. According to colleagues who attended, the meeting had been ordinary and Bishop's behavior had been described as normal in the hour leading up to it.
Amy Bishop -Public Domain
A few minutes before 4 p.m., about 30 to 40 minutes into the meeting, Amy Bishop stood up from the table and walked behind several of her coworkers on one side of the table. She pulled out a Ruger P95 9mm handgun and began shooting her coworkers execution style.
In total, Bishop killed three people and injured an additional three:
Bishop was arrested outside the building within minutes of the shooting. According to investigator Charlie Gray, who later testified at her sentencing, she repeatedly told police, "It didn't happen. I wasn't there. It wasn't me."
It was determined that she had been denied tenure in the spring of 2009 and that her teaching contract would not be renewed after the end of the school year, which was widely accepted as the motive for the shooting. Ironically, Gopi Podila, the department chair Bishop killed first, had supported her original tenure application.
A campus memorial service for the three slain faculty members was held in Spragins Hall on the UAH campus the following Friday, attended by thousands.
Further Reading
During the investigation it was found that Bishop had also shot and killed her younger brother, 18 year old Seth Bishop, on December 6, 1986 with a 12 gauge shotgun at the family's home in Braintree, Massachusetts. The shooting had been classified as an accident at the time. After the Alabama shooting, Norfolk County District Attorney William R. Keating ordered an inquest, and Bishop was indicted on first degree murder in Massachusetts in 2010. After she received a life sentence in Alabama, Norfolk County District Attorney Michael Morrissey declined to move forward with the Massachusetts prosecution.
She had also previously been charged with assault and battery and disorderly conduct after striking a woman in the head at an IHOP in Peabody, Massachusetts in March 2002, in a dispute over a child's booster seat. She received probation in exchange for an admission that there was sufficient evidence to prosecute her, and the case was eventually dismissed. Bishop and her husband were also briefly scrutinized in 1993 after pipe bombs were mailed to a Harvard professor she had worked with. The bombs did not go off and no one was ever charged in that case.
Bishop pleaded guilty in September 2012 and is currently serving a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole at the Julia Tutwiler Prison for Women in Wetumpka, Alabama.
The University of Alabama in Huntsville is located just west of downtown Huntsville. The Shelby Center for Science and Technology is on the west side of the campus, just south of Holmes Avenue near John Wright Drive. The shooting took place on the third floor of the building, in or near Room 369. The campus is private property and trespassing is prohibited, but the building exterior is visible from publicly accessible parts of campus. Please be respectful of students, faculty, and staff during your visit, and follow all posted signage at all times.
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