Old Dominion University Shooting: FBI Investigates Terror Motive After 1 Killed, 2 Injured

What began as an ordinary Thursday morning at Old Dominion University ended in terror, bloodshed and a campus-wide lockdown after a gunman opened fire inside Constant Hall, killing one person, injuring two others and forcing students to make life-or-death decisions in real time.

The first university alert went out at 10:48 a.m., warning of an active threat and instructing students to follow “Run-Hide-Fight” protocols as police and emergency personnel rushed toward the scene. By midday, the immediate threat had been neutralized, but the shock settling over the Norfolk campus was far from over.

By Thursday afternoon, federal officials had escalated the meaning of the attack beyond the language of a campus shooting. The FBI said it had opened a terrorism investigation into the violence, identifying the suspect as Mohamed Bailor Jalloh, a former Army National Guard member who previously pleaded guilty in 2016 to charges tied to providing material support to terrorists.

He was later sentenced to 11 years in prison and released from federal custody in December 2024, according to federal authorities and court reporting cited by Reuters and the Associated Press.

The most startling detail may be how the shooting ended. Authorities said ROTC students in the classroom rushed Jalloh and subdued him, actions the FBI credited with preventing even greater loss of life. Officials said the suspect was not shot. One victim later died at the hospital, another remained in critical condition, and a third person was treated and released after arriving separately for care. All three victims were affiliated with the university.

That timeline is part of what makes the attack so chilling. According to university and police accounts, less than 10 minutes separated the initial call from the moment officers determined the shooter was dead. ODU first warned of the active threat just before 10:49 a.m., suspended classes and operations on the main campus by 11:30 a.m., and issued an all-clear at 12:05 p.m., though it continued urging students and the public to avoid the area around Constant Hall as investigators processed the scene.

Later in the day, the university announced that all locations would remain closed on Friday, March 13, while counseling services were made available for students, staff and the broader campus community.

The attack is likely to resonate far beyond one Virginia campus because of who the suspect was said to be and where he allegedly chose to strike. Old Dominion sits in a deeply military-connected region, and nearly a third of its students are military-affiliated.

The shooting occurred in a classroom in the university’s College of Business, while AP reported investigators said Jalloh had a history of radicalization and once aspired to carry out an attack resembling the 2009 Fort Hood massacre. In that context, the Old Dominion shooting is no longer just a story about campus safety. It is also a story about what happens when an extremist past, a vulnerable public setting and a matter of minutes collide.

For Old Dominion, the next phase will be measured not only in evidence collection and federal briefings, but in grief. A university can reopen its buildings. It can send the all-clear. It can restore operations. But the psychic damage of a shooting inside a classroom is harder to contain. What remains now is a campus left to reckon with the fact that, on March 12, violence entered a place built for study and left it marked by something far darker.