Police say the professor who fatally shot three colleagues at a faculty meeting at University of Alabama in Huntsville on Friday, Feb 12 2010 has a troubled past. They say that more than 20 years ago, Amy Bishop shot her 18 year old brother in the chest with a shotgun at the family’s Boston suburbs home. She was 19 years old at the time.
Braintree, Massachusetts police chief Paul Frazier at a news conference gave an account of the events at the shooting 20 years ago. He said that Bishop fired the shotgun at the wall, then shot her brother, then fired into the ceiling. She fled and was later apprehended at gunpoint by police.
Bishop said she had been trying to learn how to use the gun, which apparently had been bought for protection by her father. The shooting of her brother, an accomplished violinist, was logged as a “sudden death.” She was released before she could be booked because it was considered accidental. Now, however, the records of that incident have disappeared. Frazier and the DA are discussing whether an investigation should be opened into how the case was handled.
In an odd twist that is sure to spark an investigation, the fellow who was police chief in 1986, John Polio, said in an interview on Saturday that he was “astonished” at the implication of a cover up. He claims he didn’t order Bishop’s release, and that he wasn’t close to her mother. He also insists that there are no missing records. See the link for this and related stories:
Chief: Ala. prof held in 3 killings shot Mass. Kin
Jay Lindsay, Associated Press Writer – Sun Feb 14, 12:02 am ET
An Alabama university professor accused of fatally shooting three colleagues at a faculty meeting this week shot her younger brother dead…
In the aftermath, as is usual with such tragedies, there is a flurry of questions, musings, and accusations as people try to put it into terms they can grasp. The families of the victims are asking how she could have been hired as a professor after a dispute with a former boss who received a pipe bomb, and the shooting death of her brother 20 years ago at their Braintree Massachusetts home. Students at the Alabama university are saying she never gave any indication of anything being wrong, or any stress.
One indication of a possible problem came in her grumblings about being denied tenure. Dick Reeves, CEO of BizTech, with whom she was working on marketing an invention, recalled that she often spoke of the issue of tenure, and that it was important to her. However, when he had last worked with her on Wednesday, he says she showed no signs of stress.
Such a bizarre incident will have people wondering how to weed out the nuts when they need to hire someone. While this is not a simple question, a good starting point is a comprehensive criminal background check.
Deciding which service is comprehensive is almost as tricky a question as weeding out the nuts, given the myriad choices for background checks. Fortunately, you can leave this part of the process to the expert reviewers at bestbackgroundcheck.org who have filtered the best services from all the drivel out there. A free report on the best services and how to select the one best suited for you needs is available by filling out a short survey
