A man who served eight years in federal prison for trying to aid ISIS walked back onto a Virginia campus, enrolled in classes, and opened fire on an ROTC classroom — and nobody at the university had any idea about his record until a lieutenant colonel was dead.
The investigative report released Tuesday by law firm Cooley lays bare a cascade of institutional failures at Old Dominion University in Norfolk. Mohamed Bailor Jalloh, a former Virginia National Guard member, pleaded guilty in 2017 to providing material support to the Islamic State and was sentenced to 11 years in federal prison. He got out early after completing a drug treatment program. He re-enrolled at ODU. Nobody asked about his criminal history. Nobody told the university, either.
Virginia state law prohibits universities from inquiring about a student's criminal history before admission or readmission, though they can ask after. ODU never did — before or after. Jalloh's probation officer also failed to share his background with the university, the report states, "despite the serious nature of the offense."
Had the university known, officials "likely would have sought his removal from campus," the report found.
In March, Jalloh walked into a classroom, asked whether it was an ROTC class, and after students confirmed it was, he opened fire. Lt. Col. Brandon Shah, an instructor, grappled with the gunman and was fatally wounded. Cadets in the room stabbed and disarmed Jalloh and frantically tried to save Shah's life.
The report calls the lack of information-sharing between law enforcement and the university a "critical failure" that "led to tragic consequences." Virginia law forces universities to "rely on student self-disclosure" — a policy that assumes convicted terrorists will volunteer that information on their enrollment forms.
University President Brian O. Hemphill praised the "extraordinary heroism and bravery" of Shah and the cadets, and promised to "act quickly to fully implement Cooley's recommendations." Both SFGATE and the Associated Press ran the same wire copy on the report, with no substantive framing differences — though neither outlet pressed hard on why Virginia law shields criminal histories from campus officials in the first place, or who designed that policy.
Virginia law still bans criminal history inquiries before admission. The probation officer who didn't flag Jalloh hasn't been named. The drug treatment program that cut his sentence short hasn't been examined. And the next person with a violent record walking onto a campus in Virginia — right now, today — is being asked about nothing at all.
