A convicted ISIS supporter who served six years in the Virginia National Guard opened fire at Old Dominion University on Thursday, killing one person and wounding two others while shouting "Allahu Akbar," according to federal officials and the FBI, which is investigating the shooting as an act of terrorism.
Multiple federal sources identified the gunman as 36-year-old Mohamed Bailor Jalloh, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Sierra Leone. Jalloh was sentenced in 2017 to 11 years in prison for attempting to provide material support to ISIS. He was released in December 2024, approximately 15 months before he walked onto a university campus and started killing people.
He is now deceased, subdued by a group of students before law enforcement arrived.
According to Fox News, FBI Director Kash Patel posted a statement confirming the bureau's terrorism investigation and crediting the students who intervened:
"Earlier today, an armed individual opened fire at Old Dominion University, leaving one person dead and two others wounded. The shooter is now deceased thanks to a group of brave students who stepped in and subdued him – actions that undoubtedly saved lives along with the quick response of law enforcement."
Patel added that the Joint Terrorism Task Force is "fully engaged, embedded with local authorities, and providing all resources necessary in the investigation."
Special Agent in Charge Dominique Evans confirmed at a Thursday evening news conference what witnesses apparently already knew:
"We have confirmed reports that prior to him conducting this act of terrorism, he shouted all our stated Allahu Akbar."
One person is dead. A family will never be whole again. Two others are wounded. The students who physically stopped Jalloh showed extraordinary courage, the kind of instinctive bravery no institutional process can replicate. They deserve the nation's gratitude.
But gratitude for the brave should not distract from the harder question: How was Mohamed Jalloh free to do this?
Jalloh's trajectory was not mysterious. It was documented, prosecuted, and then forgotten.
He served in the Virginia National Guard from April 30, 2009, to April 29, 2015, holding the rank of specialist in the 276th Engineer Battalion, 91st Troop Command, as a combat engineer. He left with an honorable discharge. According to the Department of Justice, he was compelled to leave the military after becoming radicalized through the online lectures of Al-Qaeda cleric Anwar al-Aulaqi.
His radicalization did not stay theoretical. The DOJ said, Jalloh:
He was arrested on July 3, 2016, convicted, and sentenced in 2017. The Justice Department requested a 20-year sentence. U.S. District Judge Liam O'Grady, an appointee of former President George W. Bush, sentenced him to 11 years in prison, plus five years of supervised release.
Prosecutors knew exactly who they were dealing with. Their sentencing memorandum stated it plainly:
"The defendant was fully aware of what he was doing, and the consequences of those actions. His only misgivings seemed to be a fear that he would waver at the critical moment."
"By putting the idea of this murder plot into religious terms, and by suggesting that murdering members of the US military would be a path to heaven, the defendant showed how strongly committed he was to the deadly ideology" of the Islamic State.
The DOJ asked for 20 years. The judge gave 11. The system released him in December 2024. Fifteen months later, he did exactly what prosecutors warned he might do.
During his legal proceedings, Jalloh wrote a letter claiming to "reject and deplore terrorism" and describing himself as a manipulated fool:
"I hate how I allowed myself to be manipulated and how ISIL manipulates troubled and impressionable people like me with their religious propaganda by appealing to Islamic solidarity and a skewed interpretation of selective verses from the Quran. I feel like a complete idiot for accepting such a superficial and dishonest interpretation of Islam, and for blindly accepting what I was being told."
He pledged to make it his "life's mission" to tell the truth about ISIS and prevent other young men from falling prey to their propaganda. He wrote that he had "always loved this country deeply" and joined the National Guard to "give back" to the nation that saved his family. He wanted "to be a good soldier and make my family proud."
Instead, he returned to Old Dominion University, the same school where he once started college before joining the Guard, and opened fire on innocent people. His life's mission, it turned out, was not counter-radicalization.
The Justice Department asked for 20 years. That request was not arbitrary. Federal prosecutors spend their careers calibrating threat. When they ask for two decades, they are telling the court: this person is dangerous, and the danger will not pass quickly.
The judge gave him 11. That nine-year gap is not a rounding error. It is the difference between a man sitting in federal prison right now and a man shooting up a Virginia campus. Had the full 20-year sentence been imposed, Jalloh would not have been released until approximately 2036.
Sentencing leniency for terrorism-related offenses is not compassion. It is negligence with a body count.
Jalloh admired the Fort Hood shooter who killed 13 people. He praised the Chattanooga attacker who killed four Marines and a sailor. He fantasized about replicating their violence. He told authorities about his ideological commitments. He was prosecuted. He wrote a nice letter. He was released. He killed.
Every step in that chain was visible to the institutions charged with preventing exactly this outcome. The intelligence was gathered. The prosecution was successful. The sentencing memorandum was explicit about the threat. And then the system decided 11 years was enough for a man whose "only misgivings" about terrorism were that he might lose his nerve.
There is a persistent institutional reluctance to treat jihadist radicalization as what it is: a durable ideological commitment that prison alone does not cure. A letter expressing remorse is not deradicalization. A completed sentence is not rehabilitation. The recidivism question for terrorism is not academic. It is measured in casualties.
The students who tackled Jalloh did what the system could not. They stopped the killing without training, without weapons, without bureaucratic process. They acted because someone had to.
The FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force is now fully engaged, and the investigation will proceed as it runs its course. But it will ultimately confirm what is already known: a convicted ISIS supporter, released early from a sentence that was already lighter than prosecutors wanted, went back to violence.
One family has lost someone who will not come home. Two others are dealing with wounds that may never fully heal. The prayers Kash Patel asked for are warranted.
But prayers are not policy. Somewhere in the federal system, the next Mohamed Jalloh is writing a letter about how much he loves America. The question is whether anyone will have the resolve to keep him where he cannot prove otherwise.