The suspect in the shooting at Old Dominion University has been convicted of being an ISIS supporter
A man previously convicted of supporting a terrorist group has been identified as the person who carried out a shooting at a Virginia college Thursday that left one dead and two wounded.
The gunman, identified by an FBI spokesman as Mohammed Bailor Jalloh, 36, was also killed. He opened fire in a classroom at Old Dominion University, killing one and wounding two, authorities said.
The injured victim has not yet been identified. US Secretary of Defense Dan Driscoll said the two people injured at the Norfolk university were military personnel.
FBI officials said the shooting was being investigated as an act of terrorism. Dominique Evans, special agent in charge of the agency’s Norfolk field office, said he shouted “Allahu Akbar” and was overcome by students who “kept him unconscious.”
Jalloh served in the Virginia National Guard from 2009 to 2015 as a combat engineer, Army officials said. He had no employees and was honorably discharged, officials said.
He was arrested the following year on suspicion of trying to support a foreign terrorist organization, ISIS, court documents said.
He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 11 years in prison and five years of probation. Jalloh was released in 2024. The state probation office that appears to be overseeing his supervised release did not immediately respond Thursday to a message seeking comment.
According to the federal sentencing memo, Jalloh sent gift card codes to an undercover FBI agent he believed to be an ISIS member. He went to North Carolina in 2016 to try to buy an AK-47 in what the memo described as “a plot to kill American soldiers.”
The owner refused to sell it, according to the memo, and bought an AR-15 at a gun store. Jalloh was arrested the next day.
In a separate sentencing memo, his defense team described his “radical views” as a shallow search for identity and purpose that overshadowed a commitment to violence. He took responsibility for the crime, the memo argues, and his interactions with ISIS operatives and the FBI showed his “obsession, obsession, lack of sophistication, and naivety.”
Jalloh’s life was marked by “war, trauma, violence, sexual abuse, and severe cultural and familial separation,” the memo said, adding that he was “an intelligent, talented, hardworking, and kind man who had a promising future before his conflict and extremism.”
One of his lawyers, Ashraf Nubani, said on Thursday that he had not been in contact with Jalloh since representing him and that he had no knowledge of the shooting incident in Old Dominion.
“Any loss of life is painful, and violence against innocent people is completely against Islamic teachings and basic human behavior,” Nubani wrote in an email.
During his sentencing, Jalloh told the judge that “this whole case is not who I am, it is not what I planned to be, and it is not who I was.”
“I have made many mistakes in my life, but this mistake of supporting the violent and extreme organization ISIS was the worst that I have ever decided to do in my life,” said Jalloh.
Jalloh apologized to the court, the soldiers and the people of the United States and said: “Every time I see the atrocities committed by ISIS, it disgusts me because I know that this is not what I want to be a part of.”
