# Faculty member arrested in UAH shooting **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [February 13, 2010, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/faculty-member-arrested-in-uah-shooting/528805 "2010-02-13T02:04:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2010, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/faculty-member-arrested-in-uah-shooting/528805/21 "2010-02-13T23:30:11Z")
[Update:](http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2010/02/professor_accus.html) > [@](#): > > The University of Alabama biology professor accused of slaying three of her colleagues fatally shot her brother in Massachusetts more than two decades ago, a local police chief said today, while at the same time raising troubling questions about how the long-ago incident was handled. > > The Boston Globe reported at the time that Amy Bishop had accidentally shot her 18-year-old brother, Seth M. Bishop, an accomplished violinist who had won a number of science awards, in Braintree. > > Braintree Police Chief Paul Frazier confirmed today at a news conference that Amy Bishop had shot her brother in 1986. But Frazier offered a different account of the shooting, saying Bishop had shot her brother during an argument and was being booked by police when the chief at the time ordered the booking process stopped and Bishop released to her mother. > > Frazier said he was basing his statements on the memories of one of his officers who was on the department at the time and had arrested Bishop. He said the records from the case have been missing since at least 1988. > > “I don’t want to use the word ‘coverup’ … but this does not look good,” he said. ---
**Author:** ![Hippy\_Hollow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hippy_hollow/32/4841_2.png) [@Hippy\_Hollow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hippy_Hollow)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2010, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/faculty-member-arrested-in-uah-shooting/528805/22 "2010-02-14T03:52:48Z")
I’m not one to assess the quality of her pub record - I have no idea what the expectations are in bio. I know in my field there is no “set” prereq for tenure - like needing a book, or 10 pubs, or anything like that. It’s about productivity and impact. So somebody might get tenure because they wrote a kick-ass article and not much else, and someone might not because they wrote 20 articles but nobody ever read them. Being a bit extreme of course, but there you go. It seems that there were some indicators that she was a little mentally unstable perhaps. And this might explain why a Harvard biologist ended up at Alabama-Huntsville. Schools that could be selective might have something a little off in her package, and Alabama-Huntsville might have fallen in love with her credentials and ignored the troubling stuff. Popularity, or “collegiality,” as we call it in academia, is actually a justifiable and important part of the tenure process. As anyone who works in the academy knows, once you have tenure nobody can tell you a damn thing. In the hands of a selfish, insane, or arrogant person, it can be quite dangerous and ruin a department. I always take academic exchanges with a grain of salt, but I’ve been fortunate that I’ve dealt mostly with people in the normal range. I have colleagues who have been racially and sexually harassed and so on - and though there are safeguards people still get away with fucked up stuff. So someone who has the potential to be a permanently employed needs to play well with others, too. This news about the death of her brother makes it even more sketchy. Was this something that others knew about? ---
**Author:** ![MPB\_in\_Salt\_Lake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c0e974/32.png) [@MPB\_in\_Salt\_Lake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MPB_in_Salt_Lake)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2010, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/faculty-member-arrested-in-uah-shooting/528805/23 "2010-02-14T04:05:44Z")
I just saw where she told a news crew (as she was being led into jail) who apparently asked her why she did it, that “It didn’t happen. There’s no way” and “They are still alive”. Is she laying groundwork to set up a mental illness or insanity defense? ---
**Author:** ![Ogre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ecb155/32.png) [@Ogre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ogre)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2010, 4:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/faculty-member-arrested-in-uah-shooting/528805/24 "2010-02-14T04:09:34Z")
> [@MPB\_in\_Salt\_Lake](#): > > I just saw where she told a news crew (as she was being led into jail) who asked her why she did it that “there is no way it happened”… > > Is she laying groundwork to set up a mental illness or insanity defense? I saw the footage of that. It happened as she was being put into the squad car. When asked, “What about the people who died?”, she responded “It never happened. They’re still alive.” ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2010, 4:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/faculty-member-arrested-in-uah-shooting/528805/25 "2010-02-14T04:30:14Z")
She taught her regular class that day. Thankfully she didn’t start shooting in a lecture hall. This could have been much, much worse. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2010, 6:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/faculty-member-arrested-in-uah-shooting/528805/26 "2010-02-14T06:43:05Z")
Maybe I’m out of line here but… shooting? Really? I mean, you’d expect a biologist to use some exotic, untraceable poison, wouldn’t you? ---
**Author:** ![Red\_Stilettos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/fbc32d/32.png) [@Red\_Stilettos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Red_Stilettos)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2010, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/faculty-member-arrested-in-uah-shooting/528805/27 "2010-02-14T17:38:33Z")
I can’t tell from the articles available whether or not Bishop ended up with a record from shooting her brother. She was certainly an adult, but it sounds like her mom somehow got the charges dropped. Does that mean that if UAH did a backgound check it would come up clean? Now the University is saying that tenure was denied in April 2009 and the appeal had also been resolved prior to Friday. So, those 2009 pubs definitely didn’t add to her tenure file. That leaves her with one primary and one review article during her time at UAH. I don’t see how she could have expected that to be good enough with UAH’s current push on research. They also said that, despite the tenure denial, she would have retained about half of the profit from her invention. [http://blog.al.com/breaking/2010/02/amy\_bishop\_had\_been\_denied\_ten.html](http://blog.al.com/breaking/2010/02/amy_bishop_had_been_denied_ten.html) ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2010, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/faculty-member-arrested-in-uah-shooting/528805/28 "2010-02-14T18:20:20Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > Maybe I’m out of line here but… shooting? Really? I mean, you’d expect a biologist to use some exotic, untraceable poison, wouldn’t you? And you wonder why she didn’t get tenure? ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2010, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/faculty-member-arrested-in-uah-shooting/528805/29 "2010-02-14T18:42:14Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > And you wonder why she didn’t get tenure? I wonder why she was allowed to have a gun. If you are white ,you can get away with one, but 2 steps over the line. ---
**Author:** ![Baal\_Houtham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baal_houtham/32/13604_2.png) [@Baal\_Houtham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baal_Houtham)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2010, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/faculty-member-arrested-in-uah-shooting/528805/30 "2010-02-14T18:48:56Z")
> [@Hippy\_Hollow](#): > > Without knowing much about this, it sounds like something stinks about the decision of the promotion & tenure committee. Hi Hippy Hollow. Sorry to jump on you about that one little remark, but it sounds like the tenure committee’s decision was absolutely non-stinky. ---
**Author:** ![scr4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/59ef9b/32.png) [@scr4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scr4)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2010, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/faculty-member-arrested-in-uah-shooting/528805/31 "2010-02-14T19:06:31Z")
> [@gonzomax](#): > > I wonder why she was allowed to have a gun… She didn’t have a permit for the gun ([cite](http://www.waff.com/Global/story.asp?S=11982912)). ---
**Author:** ![ExTank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/35a633/32.png) [@ExTank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ExTank)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2010, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/faculty-member-arrested-in-uah-shooting/528805/32 "2010-02-14T19:23:19Z")
> [@scr4](#): > > She didn’t have a permit for the gun ([cite](http://www.waff.com/Global/story.asp?S=11982912)). There’s no permit requirement to own/possess handguns in Alabama, or, to my knowledge, Huntsville/Madison County. [Cite.](http://crime.about.com/od/gunlawsbystate/p/gunlaws_al.htm) The only [Pistol Permit info](http://www.co.madison.al.us/services/sheriff/pistol.html) I could locate at the [Huntsville PD website](http://www.hsvpolice.com/) is for concealed carry permits. ---
**Author:** ![Hippy\_Hollow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hippy_hollow/32/4841_2.png) [@Hippy\_Hollow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hippy_Hollow)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2010, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/faculty-member-arrested-in-uah-shooting/528805/33 "2010-02-14T19:51:04Z")
> [@Baal\_Houtham](#): > > Hi Hippy Hollow. Sorry to jump on you about that one little remark, but it sounds like the tenure committee’s decision was absolutely non-stinky. Not at all. I didn’t know much about this when I posted, but subsequent information suggests that she wasn’t that productive, and **Red Stilettos’** link states that the tenure denial was a while back. It also sounds like they were pretty humane post-denial. Still, if you’re a paranoid person, there’s a lot of grist for the psychological mill. Maybe she thought that someone conspired against her, or her colleagues were less than supportive. Tenure track life makes you a little nutty and paranoid by its very nature. ---
**Author:** ![rocking\_chair](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rocking_chair/32/2918_2.png) [@rocking\_chair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rocking_chair)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2010, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/faculty-member-arrested-in-uah-shooting/528805/34 "2010-02-14T23:50:03Z")
and now add in a bombing incident at harvard. she has quite the pattern emerging. ---
**Author:** ![MPB\_in\_Salt\_Lake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c0e974/32.png) [@MPB\_in\_Salt\_Lake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MPB_in_Salt_Lake)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2010, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/faculty-member-arrested-in-uah-shooting/528805/35 "2010-02-15T00:03:36Z")
> [@rocking\_chair](#): > > and now add in a bombing incident at harvard. she has quite the pattern emerging. Just saw that as well—Anyone care to make a friendly little bet (say five bucks will get you ten) that she has an insanity defense pending in her near future??? ---
**Author:** ![eleanorigby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ee7513/32.png) [@eleanorigby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eleanorigby)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2010, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/faculty-member-arrested-in-uah-shooting/528805/36 "2010-02-15T00:17:52Z")
I find the facts that her brother was an accomplished violinist and scientist intriguing. Perhaps Amy has trouble with those who are more successful than she? What a tragedy for those killed. I have no doubt she’ll go for insanity defense, but really–is she sane? :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![statsman1982](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e79b87/32.png) [@statsman1982](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/statsman1982)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2010, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/faculty-member-arrested-in-uah-shooting/528805/37 "2010-02-15T00:22:16Z")
> [@eleanorigby](#): > > I find the facts that her brother was an accomplished violinist and scientist intriguing. Perhaps Amy has trouble with those who are more successful than she? > > What a tragedy for those killed. I have no doubt she’ll go for insanity defense, but really–is she sane? :dubious: She’s probably not mentally sound, but to be sane legally only requires the defendant to know the difference between right and wrong. ---
**Author:** ![LiveOnAPlane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/3d9bf3/32.png) [@LiveOnAPlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LiveOnAPlane)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2010, 5:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/faculty-member-arrested-in-uah-shooting/528805/38 "2010-02-15T05:13:08Z")
Not too much to add right now, except that it looks like our classes have been suspended for next week. Mine are, in any case. My building, the Business Administration building, is a few hundred yards away from the Shelby Center (where the shootings took place), but still I’m glad I wasn’t attending class when all of this went down. We’re all kinda still in shock here over this. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Angel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d26b3c/32.png) [@Johnny\_Angel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Angel)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2010, 8:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/faculty-member-arrested-in-uah-shooting/528805/39 "2010-02-15T08:30:58Z")
UAH was my Alma Mater (my B.A. is in Philosophy), so this is kind of surreal for me. I don’t know the biology department that well, but I did handle academic reserves for at least one person listed in critical condition. And yet, the news brought me a flood of memories about a similar incident at the University of Iowa. Not even memories, really. Feelings. At the time I was a regular on their student-run telnet bulletin board ISCABBS. I logged in from Huntsville. This was nearly 20 years ago, but the internet was a lot smaller back then, and so even though it wasn’t my campus, I saw a community that I had been marginally involved in go through a palpable shock that came across even at 80 by 25 characters of ASCII. Odd, to feel more personally affected by an event older and further away. I heard about Huntsville, I thought about Iowa. ---
**Author:** ![Angua](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8baadc/32.png) [@Angua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Angua)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2010, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/faculty-member-arrested-in-uah-shooting/528805/40 "2010-02-15T15:54:45Z")
Yeah, this is kind of surreal for us all (I work across the road from the Shelby Center, can see it from my office window), we saw it all unfolding from our offices and was really quite shocking. The building is eerily quiet today. Whether that’s a result of Friday, or because of the snow day, I don’t know. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/faculty-member-arrested-in-uah-shooting/528805.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/faculty-member-arrested-in-uah-shooting/528805.md?page=3)