Shooting at Univ. Alabama Huntsville (merged thread folds in Parents Cafe comments)

Parents Forum
561

<p>Records show Bishop was in scrap at IHOP Alleged Alabama gunwoman, mom tangled over child’s booster seat
By Bruno Matarazzo Jr. and Julie Manganis
Staff Writers</p>

<p>PEABODY — The former Ipswich woman accused of gunning down three biology professors in Alabama on Friday was once charged with punching another mother at a Peabody pancake house in a dispute over a child’s booster seat.</p>

<p>Amy Bishop, 45, was summonsed to court by Peabody police on charges of disorderly conduct and assault and battery in March 2002.</p>

<p>The charges were filed after Bishop allegedly punched the mother after swearing at her because the other woman had been given the last available booster seat at the International House of Pancakes, which was on Sylvan Street. Bishop, who had been seated after the other family, insisted the seat should be given to her because she claimed she arrived first. </p>

<p>More: [Records</a> show Bishop was in scrap at IHOP - SalemNews.com, Salem, MA](<a href=“http://www.salemnews.com/punews/local_story_048000152.html?keyword=topstory]Records”>http://www.salemnews.com/punews/local_story_048000152.html?keyword=topstory)</p>

562

<p>If that’s the way she acted in a public place, imagine how she acted at home. I believe that there’s a good chance that her kids and husband were physically abused by her.</p>

563

<p>NSM ^^ I was thinking the same thing–no wonder the kids were singing karioke (sp?) the day after her arrest - maybe they were celebrating.</p>

564

<p>February 16, 2010
Professor Had Raised Concerns About Accused Shooter’s Mental Health</p>

<p>By Thomas Bartlett and Robin Wilson</p>

<p>Huntsville, Ala.</p>

<p>Academe is often home to oddballs. Choosing to spend your life in a library or laboratory is, by definition, out of the ordinary.</p>

<p>But before she allegedly opened fire on her colleagues, killing three of them and severely injuring two more, was Amy Bishop, an assistant biology professor at the University of Alabama at Huntsville, simply another eccentric academic? Or did her behavior indicate that something was seriously wrong with her?</p>

<p>More:
[Professor</a> Had Raised Concerns About Accused Shooter’s Mental Health - Faculty - The Chronicle of Higher Education](<a href=“http://chronicle.com/article/Professor-Had-Raised-Concerns/64221/]Professor”>http://chronicle.com/article/Professor-Had-Raised-Concerns/64221/)</p>

565

<p>nsm, i wondered also if perhaps as a child she was abused, maybe seth was the “golden” child, and amy was the screw up. maybe seth got all the attention? maybe she heard everyday how wonderful he was and how terrible she was?? and if her mother covered for her…perhaps again how much they wished it had been her that died instead of her brother. one article said her home as a child was not full of love but rather dreary and cold. if she couldnt relate to anyone except her science (even her relationship with husband and children doesnt sound exactly normal) . screaming she is DR amy bishop was her call for recognition yet again? losing tenure again confirmed she was worthless and unwanted by her peers??
i’m certainly not a bleeding heart but i read on a blog a post from someone who knew her in college who described her as vacant and yet needing to belong but never belonging. its sad this wasnt stopped years ago! and the consequences (for which she is responsible) are devastating.</p>

566

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<p>I’ve been wondering if she has Asperger’s, but I don’t really know a whole lot about it. Just that some of the things she has been described as doing seem like symptoms of it.</p>

567

<p>"Another professor, however, has long been wary of Ms. Bishop. He asked The Chronicle not to use his name because, considering recent events, he is worried about his own safety. The professor, who was a member of Ms. Bishop’s tenure-review committee, said he first became concerned about Ms. Bishop’s mental health “about five minutes after I met her.”</p>

<p>The professor said that during a meeting of the tenure-review committee, he expressed his opinion that Ms. Bishop was “crazy.” Word of what he said made it back to Ms. Bishop. In September, after her tenure denial, she filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, alleging gender discrimination. The professor’s remark was going to be used as possible evidence in that case."</p>

<p>Still, it’s important to recognize that being mentally ill isn’t and shouldn’t be cause for a university’s not hiring a faculty member.</p>

<p>A tenured professor in the department where I used to work had a mental illness, which I think was bi-polar disorder. When any faculty noticed that he was having a relapse, we’d pass word to the dean, who’d inform the professor’s wife, who would help him get the treatment he needed.</p>

<p>The professor has an illness. Otherwise, he was an acceptable professor, and remains one of my friends.</p>

<p>Just because someone has a mental illness also doesn’t mean that the person is dangerous or could be violent.</p>

<p>From what has been written about Amy Bishop’s behavior at UAH prior to the shootings, she had been odd, but not violent. Believe me, there are lots of oddball faculty on college campuses. Some are brilliant people who are highly respected in their fields. If being odd meant that a person couldn’t teach college, the universities would lose many of their stars.</p>

568

<p>February 17, 2010 9:41 AM
Why Didn’t Anyone Stop Amy Bishop Years Ago?</p>

<p>Posted by Neil Katz</p>

<p>HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (CBS/AP) In retrospect, it seems hard to explain.</p>

<p>Photo: Yearbook photos of Seth Bishop and Amy Bishop.</p>

<p>PICTURES: Shooting in Alabama</p>

<p>Twenty four years before Amy Bishop allegedly murdered three of her peers and injured three more on the campus of the University of Alabama, she shot and killed her brother, but was never charged - not even with illegally carrying a shotgun in the street.</p>

<p>When police finally tracked down Amy Bishop on the day she shot and killed her teenage brother in 1986, she was crouching behind a parked car, carrying a shotgun at waist level with one round in the chamber and a second in her pocket. </p>

<p>More:
[Why</a> Didn’t Anyone Stop Amy Bishop Years Ago? - Crimesider - CBS News](<a href=“http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2010/02/17/crimesider/entry6216161.shtml]Why”>http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2010/02/17/crimesider/entry6216161.shtml)</p>

569

<p>In post 564, I wonder what the professor saw that made him hide from her. I would think that most of us have come across people who seem to have eccentric behaviors, but as adults, how many did we feel the need to hide from?</p>

570

<p>I wonder if her 18 year old daughter is applying to colleges…</p>

<p>Can you imagine the admissions people thinking…hmmm, this is the child of that Amy Bishop…She may be crazy like her mom.</p>

571

<p>Witness: Cops Didn’t Follow Up After Bishop Threatened Me With Gun In '86
Justin Elliott | February 17, 2010, 10:05AM</p>

<p>A man who was working at the newspaper distribution center where police apprehended a fleeing Amy Bishop after she killed her brother in 1986 tells TPMmuckraker that investigators never followed up with him, even though Bishop had threatened him with a shotgun, demanding to know if he had a car.</p>

<p>The revelation is at least the second – and possibly the third – known instance of Bishop pointing her gun at people she encountered after fleeing her home. And it provides more evidence of possible police missteps in the investigation of the shooting of Seth Bishop – which was ruled an accident, mainly on the word of Seth and Amy’s mother. </p>

<p>More: [Witness:</a> Cops Didn’t Follow Up After Bishop Threatened Me With Gun In '86 | TPMMuckraker](<a href=“Category: Muckraker - TPM – Talking Points Memo”>Category: Muckraker - TPM – Talking Points Memo)</p>

572

<p>I hope the people involved in the 1986 coverup feel guilty as hell. I hope they take that guilt to their graves.</p>

573

<p>If the 18-year-old follows what her mother did in terms of college, she would have planned to go to the same college where her mom worked – UAH.</p>

<p>I do think, however, that college plans are the least of that unfortunate teen’s worries now.</p>

574

<p>[Neighbors</a> recall Amy Bishop as a crank - BostonHerald.com](<a href=“http://news.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view/20100217neighbors_recall_amy_bishop_as_a_crank_i_thought_she_was_bizarre/]Neighbors”>http://news.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view/20100217neighbors_recall_amy_bishop_as_a_crank_i_thought_she_was_bizarre/)</p>

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575

<p>My kids have told me about oddball professors and I work in engineering where a lot of very bright oddball students wind up. Do they have mental health problems. Maybe, maybe not. But they get their jobs done.</p>

<p>I don’t think that people with mental health problems are any more prone to killing people than people in the general population are. They seem more likely to take their own life than that of other people.</p>

576

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<p>Especially the mother.</p>

577

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Yes and I hope her parents feel guilty as hell and they take that guilt to their graves.</p>

578

<p>Sounds like both husband and wife were a bit paranoid.</p>

579

<p>I think y’all are being way too harsh to Momma Bishop. All she did was watch her daughter gun down her brother, then watch her flee the scene armed , then lie to the police to protect a murderer, then use her power as a public official to corrupt the system to help a killer escape justice, and then fail to get her lovely daughter the help she needed. </p>

<p>I fail to see the connection to the later events. What’s a mother to do?</p>

580

<p>This kind of reminds me of an incident in my city a couple decades ago where the son of a prominent society lady was convicted of multiple rapes and she (the mother) responded by trying to put a hit out on the judge and prosecuting attorney who convicted the son. But as it happened, the person she was talking to was actually an undercover cop who tape recorded the whole encounter. The stupid things people do.</p>