Ex-National Guardsman Convicted in ISIS Sting Kills ODU ROTC Instructor Before Cadets Stop Attack

The students in Constant Hall were taking notes when the man at the door interrupted the Army ROTC class.

He asked once if it was an ROTC gathering. Then he asked again.

When the answer came back yes, investigators say, the visitor stepped into the business-school classroom at Old Dominion University, shouted “Allahu Akbar” and opened fire at the instructor standing at the front, Lt. Col. Brandon A. Shah.

Within minutes on the morning of March 12, the 42-year-old professor of military science lay mortally wounded. Two cadets had been shot. And unarmed students—some of them already injured—had tackled the gunman and stabbed him to death on the classroom floor.

By the time Norfolk police reached Constant Hall, the shooting was over. The man under the pile of cadets was someone federal agents already knew: a former Virginia National Guardsman once convicted of trying to help the Islamic State group carry out attacks on U.S. soil.

Authorities say the Old Dominion shooting was the culmination of a decade-long path that began with private radicalization, passed through an FBI sting and a terrorism conviction, and then threaded through a series of systemic gaps—an early-release “loophole” in the federal prison system, a stolen handgun bought for cash, and a state law that limited what a public university could ask about an applicant’s criminal history.

Federal investigators are treating the attack as an act of terrorism.

A short, violent attack

Campus security video shows the gunman, 36-year-old Mohamed Bailor Jalloh, parking on Old Dominion’s Norfolk campus around 9:40 a.m., roughly an hour before the shooting.

Around 10:45 a.m., he walked into Constant Hall, home to the university’s Strome College of Business, and entered a classroom being used for an Army ROTC session. According to investigators and court filings, he confirmed with people inside that it was an ROTC event before pulling out a .22-caliber Glock 44 pistol and firing repeatedly at Shah from close range.

Two cadets were hit in the initial volley. As shots echoed through the hallways, other students rushed the gunman. In the struggle that followed, several cadets were injured. One managed to grab a knife and stab Jalloh while others held him down.

The FBI has said Jalloh was not shot and died from stab wounds at the scene.

Old Dominion sent its first emergency alert at 10:48 a.m., warning students to avoid Constant Hall and to follow “Run, Hide, Fight” guidance. Norfolk officers arrived within minutes to find the gunman dead and the wounded being treated by medics. The university issued an all-clear shortly after noon but closed the main campus for the rest of the day and canceled classes the following day.

Two injured cadets were taken to Sentara Norfolk General Hospital, a Level 1 trauma center. Both were initially listed in critical condition. All of those shot were affiliated with the ROTC program.

FBI Special Agent in Charge Dominique Evans later praised the students’ actions, saying the cadets showed “extreme bravery and courage” and “prevented further loss of life by stopping the gunman.”

A decorated officer killed on his home campus

For Shah, the attack ended a military career that had taken him from Virginia high school classrooms to war zones abroad and back to his alma mater.

Raised in Staunton, Virginia, with a Pakistani American father, Shah enlisted in the Army in 2003 as an aviation operations specialist. He enrolled at Old Dominion in 2005, commissioned as an officer and graduated in 2007 with a sociology degree and a minor in military science.

Shah went on to become an Apache helicopter pilot, deploying to Iraq and Afghanistan. His decorations included the Senior Army Aviator Badge, the Combat Action Badge, two Bronze Star Medals and the Air Medal with “V” device for valor.

He returned to Old Dominion as professor of military science and head of the Army ROTC battalion, training cadets in the same institution where he had once sat in their place.

He was survived by his wife and son.

At a funeral service in ODU’s Chartway Arena attended by more than 600 people, including Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger and members of Congress, Shah was posthumously awarded the Legion of Merit and the Purple Heart. State officials ordered flags lowered to half-staff in his honor.

University President Brian O. Hemphill called Shah’s killing “a senseless act of violence” and urged the Old Dominion community to honor his legacy and support the wounded cadets.

From ISIS plotter to online student

The man who killed Shah had once worn a U.S. uniform himself.

Jalloh, a naturalized U.S. citizen originally from Sierra Leone, served in the Virginia Army National Guard as a specialist from 2009 until around 2015. By the mid-2010s, according to federal court records, he had begun consuming online jihadist propaganda, including lectures by U.S.-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, and was in contact with individuals linked to the Islamic State group.

In 2016, the FBI arrested him after a sting operation. Prosecutors said Jalloh sent $340 to someone he believed was an ISIS operative while in Africa, praised the gunman who killed five service members in Chattanooga, Tennessee, in 2015 and discussed carrying out a Fort Hood-style attack on U.S. troops.

He pleaded guilty in October 2016 in federal court in Virginia to attempting to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization and was sentenced in early 2017 to 11 years in prison and five years of supervised release.

Under federal law and Bureau of Prisons policy, inmates convicted of terrorism-related offenses are generally barred from using certain programs, including some drug-treatment and recidivism-reduction courses, to shorten their sentences.

Yet Jalloh left custody about two and a half years early.

According to the Bureau of Prisons and public reporting, he was transferred to a residential reentry center, or halfway house, in August 2024 and fully released from federal custody on Dec. 23, 2024, after completing a substance abuse program. The bureau has since said that allowing a terrorism convict to earn that reduction was a misapplication of policy and described it as a loophole that has now been closed.

At the time of the Old Dominion shooting, Jalloh was on supervised release, a form of federal probation. Officials have said his last contact with his supervising officer was about four months before the attack.

During that period, he enrolled in Old Dominion as an online student.

The university, like other public institutions in Virginia, is subject to a 2021 state statute that prohibits schools from asking applicants about their criminal history on their own forms and from denying admission solely because of criminal records listed on third-party applications. The law does allow colleges to revoke admission or remove a student if his or her criminal past is later determined to pose a threat to campus safety.

After the shooting, Old Dominion notified students that it was adding a voluntary questionnaire about prior felony convictions as “an additional step” in its safety procedures.

A $100 gun and a separate federal case

Jalloh could not legally buy a firearm because of his felony conviction. Investigators say he did not have to.

The pistol recovered in Constant Hall was a .22-caliber Glock 44 with a partially defaced serial number. Federal prosecutors now allege it was stolen roughly a year earlier in Newport News and funneled into the underground market.

On March 13, authorities charged 32-year-old Kenya Mcchell Chapman of Smithfield, Virginia, with dealing firearms without a license and three counts of making false statements on federal gun-purchase forms. In court papers, prosecutors say Chapman stole the Glock and sold it to Jalloh for $100 in cash shortly before the shooting, despite knowing he was a convicted felon.

Officials have also said Chapman was already on law enforcement’s radar as a suspected straw purchaser in other cases.

“If you steal firearms, lie on federal forms, and put weapons in the hands of convicted terrorists, this FBI will find you,” FBI Director Kash Patel said in a statement announcing the charges.

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said Chapman “allegedly stole a firearm and illegally sold it to a convicted terrorist, who murdered a decorated American veteran, and he will finally face the full weight of justice.”

Chapman has not entered a plea in the case. No attorney for him has publicly commented.

Terrorism investigation and political fallout

The FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force is leading the investigation into the Old Dominion shooting. Patel has publicly called it an act of terrorism, citing Jalloh’s prior ISIS-support conviction, his choice of a military-linked target and his statements during the attack.

Agents searched Jalloh’s residence the day after the shooting and reported finding ammunition consistent with the Glock used in the classroom. So far, authorities have not alleged that he received new direction or support from any foreign group, and evidence points to a lone-actor attack inspired by earlier extremist beliefs.

The case has quickly become a flash point in national debates over terrorism, criminal justice and gun policy.

President Donald Trump, in office at the time, issued a statement saying the shooting was committed by a man “previously arrested for providing material support to an Islamic State terrorist group, and who was released early from federal prison under the Biden administration.” The Bureau of Prisons, for its part, has acknowledged the early release and policy error, but it has not assigned blame to any particular administration.

Virginia officials from both parties have condemned the attack. Spanberger, along with Democratic Sens. Mark Warner and Tim Kaine and Democratic Rep. Bobby Scott, attended Shah’s funeral and praised the cadets who intervened. Republican Rep. Jen Kiggans called Jalloh a “terrorist monster” and said she was “furious” that a man with known extremist ties was free in Hampton Roads.

Norfolk Commonwealth’s Attorney Ramin Fatehi described gun violence as a “national sickness” and urged lawmakers to tighten gun laws, including measures aimed at straw purchasing and trafficking of stolen weapons.

Meanwhile, security experts and civil-rights advocates have warned that the attacker’s use of “Allahu Akbar” and his Muslim background could fuel backlash against Muslim students and local mosques. Religious and community organizations have issued statements condemning the shooting and urging against collective blame, even as the federal case focuses squarely on Jalloh’s individual conduct and prior conviction.

Cadets as defenders

For the cadets who overpowered Jalloh, the day ended with awards but also lasting trauma.

The Army has announced Meritorious Service Medals for eight Old Dominion cadets involved in subduing the gunman, along with two Purple Hearts for those wounded. University counselors and military chaplains have been made available as the students confront the psychological toll of having killed in self-defense before they have even commissioned as officers.

Constant Hall remains a focal point of grief. The building was closed for the rest of the spring term. Outside, flags flew at half-staff as students left flowers and ROTC unit patches beneath photos of Shah.

Hemphill, the university president, said Old Dominion would remember Shah as an alumnus and officer who “dedicated his life to serving our nation and mentoring the next generation of leaders.”

For Shah’s cadets, and for the institutions now reviewing the failures that let a known extremist return with a stolen gun, that next generation will carry the memory of a war-zone style attack in a classroom that was supposed to be safe.