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Professor accused in Ala. slayings shot her brother in Mass. 24 years ago
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February 13, 2010 01:53 PM



Bob Gathany/Huntsville Times/AP


Amy Bishop was placed in a squad car after her arrest.


By John M. Guilfoil and Martin Finucane, Globe Staff

The University of Alabama biology professor accused of slaying three of her colleagues fatally shot her brother in an apparent accident in Massachusetts more than two decades ago, a local police chief said.

Braintree Police Chief Paul Frazier confirmed the 1986 shooting in his town and slated a news conference this afternoon to discuss the incident.

The Globe reported at the time that Amy Bishop had shot her 18-year-old brother, Seth M. Bishop, an accomplished violinist who had won a number of science awards.

John Polio, chief of police at the time, said Amy Bishop, who was 20 at the time, had asked her mother, Judith, in the presence of her brother how to unload a round from the chamber of a 12-gauge shotgun.

Polio told the Globe that while Amy Bishop was handling the weapon, it fired, wounding Seth Bishop in the abdomen. He was pronounced dead at a hospital 46 minutes after the Dec. 6, 1986 shooting.

"Every indication at this point in time leads us to believe it was an accidental shooting," Polio said at the time.

"Students are saying that her husband was "the demon that possessed her". Don't know what that means.
Hope"

"her husband, Jim Anderson, chief science officer of Cherokee Labsystems in Huntsville."

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"The University of Alabama biology professor accused of slaying three of her colleagues fatally shot her brother in an apparent accident in Massachusetts more than two decades ago, a local police chief said.

17breezes wrote:http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2010/02/professor_accus.html

Professor accused in Ala. slayings shot her brother in Mass. 24 years ago
E-mail|Link
February 13, 2010 01:53 PM



Bob Gathany/Huntsville Times/AP


Amy Bishop was placed in a squad car after her arrest.


By John M. Guilfoil and Martin Finucane, Globe Staff

The University of Alabama biology professor accused of slaying three of her colleagues fatally shot her brother in an apparent accident in Massachusetts more than two decades ago, a local police chief said.

Braintree Police Chief Paul Frazier confirmed the 1986 shooting in his town and slated a news conference this afternoon to discuss the incident.

The Globe reported at the time that Amy Bishop had shot her 18-year-old brother, Seth M. Bishop, an accomplished violinist who had won a number of science awards.

John Polio, chief of police at the time, said Amy Bishop, who was 20 at the time, had asked her mother, Judith, in the presence of her brother how to unload a round from the chamber of a 12-gauge shotgun.

Polio told the Globe that while Amy Bishop was handling the weapon, it fired, wounding Seth Bishop in the abdomen. He was pronounced dead at a hospital 46 minutes after the Dec. 6, 1986 shooting.

"Every indication at this point in time leads us to believe it was an accidental shooting," Polio said at the time.

MacCruiskeen wrote:Where's the gun? Did it just vanish, like a UFO?

"MacCruiskeen


Joined: Fri Nov 17, 2006 3:47 am
Posts: 3507
Re: Breaking - First ever female rampage killing?
Where's the gun? Did it just vanish, like a UFO "

"Accused Ala. prof rare among workplace shootersBy KRISTIN M. HALL and DESIREE HUNTER, AP
posted: 55 MINUTES AGO
HUNTSVILLE, Ala. -
The professor accused of killing three colleagues during a faculty meeting was a Harvard-educated neurobiologist, inventor and mother whose life had been marred by a violent episode in her distant past.
More than two decades ago, police said Amy Bishop fatally shot her teenage brother at their
Massachusetts home in what officers at the time logged as an accident — though authorities said Saturday that records of the shooting are missing.Bishop, 42, had just months left teaching at the University of Alabama in Huntsville when police
said she opened fire Friday in a room filled with a dozen of her colleagues from the school's
biology department. Bishop, a rare woman suspected in a workplace shooting, was to leave after this semester because she had been denied tenure.
Some have said she was upset after being denied the job-for-life security afforded tenured
academics, and the husband of one victim and one of Bishop's students said they were told the shooting stemmed from the school's refusal to grant her such status. Authorities have refused to discuss a motive, and school spokesman Ray Garner said the faculty meeting wasn't called to discuss tenure.
William Setzer, chairman of chemistry department at UAH, said Bishop was appealing the decision made last year.
"Politics and personalities" always play a role in the tenure process, he said. "In a close
department it's more so. If you have any lone wolves or bizarre personalities, it's a problem and I'm thinking that certainly came into play here."
Descriptions of Bishop from students and colleagues were mixed. Some saw a strange woman who had difficulty relating to her students, while others described a witty, intelligent teacher.
Students and colleagues described Bishop as intelligent, but someone who often had difficulty
explaining difficult concepts.
Bishop was well-known in the research community, appearing on the cover of the winter 2009 issue of "The Huntsville R&D Report," a local magazine focusing on engineering, space and genetics. However, it was unclear how many of her colleagues and students knew about a more tragic part of her past.
She shot her brother, an 18-year-old accomplished violinist, in the chest in 1986, said Paul
Frazier, the police chief in Braintree, Mass., where the shooting occurred. Bishop fired at least
three shots, hitting her brother once and hitting her bedroom wall before police took her into
custody at gunpoint, he said.
Frazier said the police chief at the time told officers to release Bishop to her mother before she could be booked. At the time, it was logged as an accident.
But Frazier's account was disputed by former police Chief John Polio, who told The Associated Press he didn't call officers to tell them to release Bishop. "There's no cover-up, no missing records," he said.
Attempts by AP to track down addresses and phone numbers for Bishop's family in the Braintree area weren't immediately successful Saturday. The current police chief said he believed her family had moved away.
After being educated at Harvard University, Bishop moved to Huntsville and in 2003 became an
associate professor at the University of Alabama's campus there. The school, with about 7,500 students, has close ties with NASA and is known for its engineering and science programs.
She and her husband placed third in a statewide university business plan competition in July 2007, presenting a portable cell incubator they had invented. They won $25,000 to help start a company to market the device.
Her husband, James Anderson, was detained and questioned by police but has not been charged. Police said Bishop was quickly caught after Friday's shooting. A 9-millimeter handgun was found in the bathroom of the building where the shootings occurred, and Huntsville police spokesman Sgt. Mark Roberts said Bishop did not have a permit for it.Several experts said campus shootings commonly occur because the shooter has some kind of festering grievance that university officials haven't addressed, and the granting of tenure can be a polarizing and politicized process for many academics.
"Universities tend to string it out without resolution, tolerate too much and to have a cumbersome decision process that endangers the comfort of many and the safety of some," said Dr. Park Dietz, who is president of Threat Assessment Group Inc., a Newport Beach, Calif.-based violence prevention firm.
Tenure, which makes firing and other discipline difficult if not impossible, can seem generous to outsiders. But the job protection gives professors the freedom to express ideas and conduct studies without fear of reprisal. The system typically emphasizes research over teaching, and tenured professors typically are paid more.
While it's rare for the stresses of the tenure process to incur violence, what's even rarer is for a woman to be accused in an incident like the one Friday that also left three of Bishop's colleagues injured, two critically.
"Workplace shootings of that kind are overwhelmingly male," said Franklin E. Zimring, a law
professor and director of violence prevention at the University of California, Berkeley. "Going
postal was essentially a monopoly position of the XY chromosome."
—
Associated Press Writers Jay Lindsay in Braintree, Mass., and Thomas Watkins in Los Angeles

contributed to this report.
Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,

broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
2010-02-13 17:35:33"

This is Google's cache of http://www.uah.edu/biology/amy/releases.html. It is a snapshot of the page as it appeared on Feb 13, 2010 14:58:03 GMT. The current page could have changed in the meantime. Learn more

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PRESS RELEASES
March 10, 2009: Neuron Research Lab Launches Experiment into Space
The Neuron Research Laboratory in collaboration with the UAH Space Hardware Club, UAH College of Nursing, and Cherokee Labsystems successfully launched a scientific payload into space. This marks the first time that the Space Hardware club has flown a payload from another group on campus.
Payload for this mission was a cell support system containing a live cell culture of motor neurons. The goal for the mission was to send cells to the threshold of space and recover them alive. This required keeping the incubation chamber at 37°C (98.6°F) and at atmospheric pressure.
Launch was at 8:07am on March 7th from the Atmosheric research facility at NSSTC. The flight lasted approximately three hours and reached an approximate altitude of 31 kilometers (99,000ft), one of the highest missions achieved by a UAH balloon launch.
Coordination of the three teams was provided by Dr. Lynx McLellan of the College of Nursing. Cells and scientific support were provided by Dr. Amy Bishop of the Biology department. Payload support development was provided by Cherokee Labsystems while launch and recovery was accomplished by the UAH Space Hardware Club headed by Eric Becnel.
The Laboratory would like to thank everyone involved, especially the chase team who successfully tracked and recovered the payload intact.
UAHuntsville Articles:
UAHuntsville NewsCenter
UAH Exponent

June, 2008: Neuron research at UAHuntsville

Senior biology major, Grace Park from Huntsville, checks the condition of nerve cells being cultured at UAHuntsville. Working with Dr. Amy Bishop and Supported by the Research Experience for Undergraduates program, Park is spending her summer growing and testing neurons using techniques that might lead to treatments for MS and ALS.

January 30, 2008: UAH Signs Licensing Agreement with IntelCell



From right to left: Ron Greenwood, Ph.D.; Aarron Hammond, IntelCell CEO; Amy Bishop, Ph.D. Inventor of CellDrive™

UAHuntsville signs a licensing agreement to commercially develop the CellDrive™, a fully portable system for cell culture. IntelCell will have the responsibility for bringing this technology to market.

July 2, 2007: Amy Bishop incubates winning business idea

A company created to bring to market the portable cell incubator invented by a UAH biology professor and her husband placed third in a recent statewide university business plan competition and won $25,000 to help the company get started.
[Read Story Here ...]

June 4, 2007: UAH teams take top spots in Alabama Launchpad Initiative

Two teams lead by recent UAH alumni finished in the top three of the inaugural Alabama Launchpad Initiative, a statewide business plan competition affiliated with state universities.
[Read Story Here ... (p2)]

February 22, 2007: Ten UAH teams advance in Alabama Launchpad

Ten teams with UAH connections are among 26 that advanced to the third stage of judging in a statewide $260,000 business plan competition sponsored by the Economic Development Partnership of Alabama.
[Read Story Here ...]

Fall, 2003: Dr. Bishop joins Biology Faculty

Dr. Amy Bishop, a neurobiologist from Harvard University, has joined our faculty as an assistant professor.
[Read Story Here ... (p8)]


Copyright ©2009 University of Alabama in Huntsville

"BISHOP KILLED BROTHER IN 1986By: WendyCase Huntsville : AL : USA | about 1 hour ago 1 0 Views: 35 Alabama University faculty was shocked on Friday when Professor Amy Bishop open fired during a meeting, killing three of her colleagues.
The suspect, 42-year-old Bishop, was arrested and kept repeating, "It didn't happen".
Yet this is nothing new to Bishop. According to police, the professor lived in Boston in 1986, when she shot and killed her younger brother. Seth Bishop, was hit once, killing him and the other shots she fired hit a wall.
The police chief, Paul Frazier, Bishop was taken in at gunpoint in '86 but was released back to her mother before she was booked. The officers who took part in the 20 year old case, says they were told by (then police chief) John Polio, to let her go and reported it as an accident.
Polio has denied that he ever told anyone she be released and that there are no files missing, and angered by the accusation.
Frazier has said that officers who worked the incident are meeting with district attorney who will determine if a criminal investigation of the missing files is necessary"

"Comments from Braintree Police Chief Paul Frazier Regarding Amy Bishop
Saturday, February 13, 2010

E-mail Print (0) Comments Text size Share Buzz up!Good afternoon,

“The members of the Braintree Police Department extend their thoughts and prayers to the victims in the shooting incident which occurred at the University of Alabama, in Huntsville, Alabama as well as to their families and the members of the Huntsville Police Department who responded to and are investigating the incident.”

“I have been in contact with the Huntsville Police Department to confirm that the suspect in their shooting had been involved in a shooting incident in Braintree 24 years ago. Their investigators will be back in touch with us within a couple of days.”

“The suspect in the Huntsville shooting, Amy Bishop had been involved in a shooting incident in Braintree, Massachusetts in December of 1986. I located the Day Log from December of 1986 and found that the incident had occurred on December 6th. After finding the report number I looked in our archived files for the report. I was unable to locate the report.”

“Officer Ronald Solimini informed me that he wrote the report and said that I wouldn’t find it as it has been missing from the files for over 20 years. He said that former Police Chief Edward Flynn had looked for the report and that it was missing. He believes this was in 1988.”

Officer Solimini recalled the incident as follows: He said he remembers that Ms. Bishop fired a round from a pump action shotgun into the wall of her bedroom. She had a fight with her brother and shot him, which caused his death. She fired a third round from the shotgun into the ceiling as she exited the home. She fled down the street with the shotgun in her hand. At one point she allegedly pointed the shotgun at a motor vehicle in an attempt to get the driver to stop. Officer Solimini found her behind a business on Washington Street. Officer Timothy Murphy was able to take control of the suspect at gunpoint and seized the shotgun. Ms. Bishop was subsequently handcuffed and transported to the police station under arrest.”

“Officer Solimini informed me that before the booking process was completed Ms. Bishop was released from custody without being charged.”

“I (Chief Frazier) spoke with the retired Deputy Chief who was then a Lieutenant and was responsible for booking Ms. Bishop. He said he had started the process when he received a phone call he believes was from then Police Chief John Polio or possibly from a captain on Chief Polio’s behalf. He was instructed to stop the booking process. At some point Ms. Bishop was turned over to her mother and they left the building via a rear exit.”
Braintree Police Lieutenant Karen MacAleese was a high school classmate and confirmed from photographs that the suspect is the same Amy Bishop who lived in Braintree.

“I was not on duty at the time of the incident, but I recall how frustrated the members of the department were over the release of Ms. Bishop. It was a difficult time for the department as there had been three (3) shooting incidents within a short timeframe. The release of Ms. Bishop did not sit well with the police officers and I can assure you that this would not happen in this day and age.”

“It is troubling that this incident has come to light. I can assure you that the members of the Braintree Police Department maintain the highest of integrity. Since it was discovered this morning that the report is missing, I have been in contact with Mayor Joseph Sullivan. Mayor Sullivan and I have spoken with District Attorney William Keating and we will be meeting with him next week to discuss this situation. The Mayor supports a full review of this matter and agrees that we want to know where the records are.”

Officer Solimini recalled the incident as follows: He said he remembers that Ms. Bishop fired a round from a pump action shotgun into the wall of her bedroom. She had a fight with her brother and shot him, which caused his death. She fired a third round from the shotgun into the ceiling as she exited the home. She fled down the street with the shotgun in her hand. At one point she allegedly pointed the shotgun at a motor vehicle in an attempt to get the driver to stop. Officer Solimini found her behind a business on Washington Street. Officer Timothy Murphy was able to take control of the suspect at gunpoint and seized the shotgun. Ms. Bishop was subsequently handcuffed and transported to the police station under arrest.”

DoYouEverWonder wrote:Is being a psychopath a requirement for getting into Harvard?