On March 12, 2026, a shooting took place at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia. The assailant, 36-year-old Mohamed Bailor Jalloh, attacked a Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC) group, yelling "Allahu Akbar" while opening fire.[3][4] One ROTC instructor was killed and two ROTC cadets were critically injured before Jalloh was fatally stabbed as other members of the ROTC group subdued him. The shooting is being investigated as an act of terrorism.
Old Dominion University is a public research university in Norfolk, Virginia, United States. In 2023, it had an enrollment of 23,494 students. Its main campus covers 250 acres.[5] Constant Hall, the place where the shooting occurred, is the hub of the university's College of Business. It has two lecture halls and another 19 classrooms.[6]
Shooting
At around 10:43a.m. EDT, the gunman opened fire on members of the university's ROTC program in Constant Hall before being subdued and fatally stabbed by a group of cadets, two of whom were injured during the struggle.[7][8]ABC News reported he walked into a room and asked if it was an ROTC class. When someone replied yes, he reportedly shouted "Allahu Akbar", before shooting the instructor, Brandon Shah, several times, killing him.[3][4] An alert was made by the university at 10:48a.m. urging students to avoid the area and follow the run-hide-fight protocols.[9] The first call was made in less than 10 minutes. Police arrived four minutes later and found that the shooter was dead.[10][11][12] One ROTC student fatally stabbed the shooter while others subdued him.[13] Three nearby schools were placed on lockdown. Dozens of police and first responders were dispatched to the scene.[14] An all clear alert was sent out by the university at around 12:10p.m. saying that there is no threat and to avoid the area where the shooting occurred.[7]
Victims
One person was killed and two ROTC members were injured. The two injured ROTC cadets were transported to the Level 1 trauma center at Norfolk General Hospital in critical condition, where one later succumbed to their injuries.[1] Initially, police reported they were the only victims; however, another victim brought themself to a hospital in Virginia Beach.[7] All victims were members of the university.[15][10] The deceased victim was identified as Lieutenant Colonel Brandon Shah, a resident of Staunton. He enlisted in the Army in 2003 as an aviation operations specialist and enrolled at Old Dominion University in 2005. Shah received his Army commission and graduated in 2007 with a bachelor's degree in sociology and a minor in military science.[16]
Perpetrator
Authorities identified the shooter as 36-year-old Mohamed Bailor Jalloh (September 1989[17] – March 12, 2026), a naturalized US citizen, who was born in Sierra Leone, and had been a resident of Sterling, Virginia.[18][19] Jalloh previously served as a member of the Army National Guard and later in the Virginia National Guard from 2009 until early 2016. He previously plead guilty on October 27, 2016, for attempting to provide material to support the Islamic State before his arrest on July 3, 2016, and was sentenced to 11 years in federal prison and five years of supervised release on February 10, 2017. He was registered as inmate #90187-083 based on a document from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, and was released from federal custody on December 23, 2024.[7][15]
Court documents said Jalloh became radicalized while briefly living in Nigeria between July 2015 and January 2016, after meeting with ISIL members and viewing extremist propaganda, including lectures from Al-Qaeda-linked cleric Anwar al-Awlaki. On the day before his arrest, Jalloh test-fired and purchased a Stag Arms5.56 caliberassault weapon from the Blue Ridge Arsenal gun store and firing range in Chantilly, Virginia, after attempting to purchase a Bushmaster XM-15 at the same store, and failing to purchase another firearm one month earlier in North Carolina.[20][21] Jalloh had previously praised Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez, who committed the 2015 Chattanooga shootings, in which five people were killed at two military installations.[22] Jalloh told an FBI confidential informant, pretending to be an Islamic State member, that he had considered carrying out a shooting in the United States sometime in summer 2016, during Ramadan, making references to the 2009 Fort Hood shooting and stating that he believed that such attacks were "100 percent the right thing".[4][20][23]
Aftermath
Classes were cancelled and operations on the main campus were suspended for the remainder of the day.[10] The university was closed the day after the shooting.[1]
Kiggans was "furious" that this "terrorist monster" with ties known to ISIS was walking around Hampton Roads and offered her condolences to Lt. Col. Shah's family.[3]
Norfolk Commonwealth Attorney Ramin Fatehi called gun violence a "national sickness", and urged legislators to enact gun control.[27]
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