You can see the part of each story below that mentions how Peter O. was captured here, while an index is here

Nigerian in US Arraigned for Murder

This Day
Africa News

A Nigeria citizen in the United State, Mr. Peter Odighizuwa was Thursday in Virginia USA, arraigned with the murder of three persons and injuring others.

According to reports Thursday, said Odighizuwa, 43, had on Wednesday killed the dean, a professor and a student of a private law school in Virginia from where he was dismissed a day earlier for poor academic performance. A day following his dismissal, Odighizuwa returned to the Appalachian School of Law and met with the Dean L Anthony Sutin in an attempt to reverse his dismissal.

But when his request was not granted Odighizuwa pulled out his hand gun, killing the dean and a professor who taught him contract law, Thomas Blackwell.

He then went downstairs and opened fire on students, killing one and injuring three others. Some students tackled and handcuffed him before he could do more harm.

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Area officer helps wrestle law school gunman to ground

Jon Ostendorff
The Asheville Citizen-Times

Area officer helps wrestle law school gunman to ground

It wasn’t until Tracy Bridges saw his fellow students grieving at the tiny law school in Virginia that he stopped being a cop and became one of the victims.

“After all that had happened, we went outside and I saw the students in the lobby,” he said. “I knew their faces. It kind of kicked in that I’m just a student here as well.”

Bridges is a reserve Buncombe County sheriff’s deputy and a third-year law student at the Appalachian School of Law in Grundy, Va., where Peter Odighizuwa was accused of killing three people and wounding three others on Wednesday, just moments after he was dismissed from the school for failing grades.

The day started like any other for the 25-year-old Marshall native, including having lunch with friend Ted Besen of Wilmington. Both cops and North Carolina residents, the men quickly developed a close friendship during their time at the school.

They met for lunch that day then had to rush to make their 1:30 p.m. class. Bridges, anxious to be on time, parked his truck in a faculty spot in front of the building.

He had just opened his book in class when he heard three muffled pops. Several more pops echoed down the hall, closer this time. Then Bridges heard a scream.

Bridges and Besen ran into the hallway and saw a professor. “Peter’s in the building shooting,” the professor shouted.

Bridges ran back into the classroom. “Get out,” he ordered the students. The two men shepherded the students away from danger, down a back stairwell and out of the building.

Bridges and Besen then ran around to the front of the building. They saw Peter Odighizuwa, 43, clutching a handgun. Bridges instantly recognized his classmate, a troubled former student who had flunked out of the 230-student law school.

Bridges remembered the handgun in his truck, parked nearby.

He reached inside and grabbed his weapon. He pointed the handgun at Odighizuwa.

“We continued to approach Peter and he turned and faced us,” Bridges said. The Marshall native shouted at Odighizuwa to drop his gun. The man did as he was ordered.

“Ted was the first one to get to him,” Bridges said. “There was a short altercation. He hit Ted in the jaw and Ted backed up and pushed him off-balance.”

The men wrestled the suspect to the ground and handcuffed him.

Bridges, a Western Carolina University graduate, downplays his life-saving actions. He credits stopping the gunman to teamwork.

“It was me and Ted both,” he said. “We were trained under the North Carolina law enforcement institution and so we kind of have an unspoken communication between each other. And we were able to work together.”

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Pistol peril What’s the solution?

Gzedit
Charleston Gazette (West Virginia)

APPALACHIAN School of Law - a small, new Virginia institution designed to train lawyers to relieve a shortage in mountain communities - contained several West Virginia students. It also contained a Nigerian immigrant who couldn’t pass the stringent courses.

After he flunked out a second time, the bitter man returned to the school with a .380 pistol. He killed the dean and a professor in their offices, then opened fire on students in a common area. A female student was killed, and three others were seriously wounded.

Horrors like this happen time after time in pistol-polluted America, where any angry or unbalanced person can obtain a gun. The U.S. rate of firearm murders is vastly higher than in other advanced nations, where weapons are tightly controlled.

Under today’s conditions, Americans have virtually no defense. An armed weirdo can come to your front door, or your church, or your office, or your child’s school, or a movie theater, or a concert hall - nearly anywhere - and start shooting.

Gun lovers, such as chest-thumping Charlton Heston, say the cure is for thousands of Americans to go armed, so they can shoot back. But that’s grotesque. Do you want to work every day in an office full of armed people? Do you want armed teachers at your child’s school? The risk of accidental killing would be greater than the risk of murder.

Even if the deans, professors and students at the law school had been carrying pistols of their own, they probably couldn’t have seized them in time to prevent tragedy. Usually, there’s no warning before gunfire erupts.

Gun-control laws have glaring loopholes. A new national study found that 9,976 convicted felons, including 270 in West Virginia, bought guns, even though it’s illegal for them to do so. Defective records failed to reveal their past convictions.

Even if the national background screening system worked well, criminals easily can obtain pistols by having others make purchases for them. A study last fall found that 40 percent of prison inmates serving time for gun crimes had obtained the weapons from relatives or friends.

The only real cure for America’s horrendous gun toll would be a drastic reduction in the availability of pistols. But that’s unlikely to happen because U.S. politicians are terrified of the gun lobby. The whole Bush administration - especially Attorney General John Ashcroft - is committed to allowing Americans to carry concealed guns.

West Virginia politicians likewise support the right of people to have pistols hidden in their pockets. Absurdly, right-to-bear-arms legislators are spending $ 900,000 of taxpayer money for metal detectors at the state Capitol. The lawmakers say everyone has a right to go armed - but they fear that an armed person might come into their chambers.

As long as America takes no real action to decrease the saturation of guns in society, people will have no defense against horrors such as the law school tragedy.

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School massacre accused ‘sick’

Chris Kahn
The Daily Telegraph (Sydney, Australia)

A FAILED law student accused of killing his dean, a law professor and another student in Richmond, Virginia, told a judge yesterday that he is sick and needs help.

Peter Odighizuwa shuffled into court in leg chains, surrounded by police officers. Hiding his face behind his arrest warrant, he told Judge Patrick Johnson: “I was supposed to see my doctor. He was supposed to help me out … I don’t have my medication.”

Odighizuwa, a 43-year-old naturalised US citizen from Nigeria, went to the Appalachian School of Law in Virginia on Thursday to talk to dean Anthony Sutin about being dismissed for failing his grades.

He shot Mr Sutin and Professor Thomas Blackwell with a .380-calibre pistol, officials said.

He then went to a common area and opened fire at students.

Students ended the rampage by confronting and then tackling the gunman, who dropped his weapon, officials said.

“He was angry. He thought he was being treated unfairly, and he wanted to see his transcript,” said Chris Clifton, the school’s financial aid officer.

“I don’t think Peter knew at this time that it [dismissal] was going to be permanent and final.”

Student Angela Dales, 33, was killed in the rampage, said State Police spokesman Mike Stater. Three others were injured and taken to hospital in fair condition.

Prosecutors charged Odighizuwa with three counts of capital murder, three counts of attempted capital murder and six charges for use of a firearm in a felony.

A few minutes before his arraignment, Odighizuwa told reporters as he was led into the courtroom: “I was sick, I was sick. I need help.”

Odighizuwa will remain in custody pending a preliminary hearing on March 21. Known around the rural campus as Peter O, he had been struggling with his grades for more than a year and had been dismissed once before.

Mr Clifton met Odighizuwa a day earlier when the student learned he was to be kicked out.

Classmates described Odighizuwa as quiet, while others called him “abrasive”.

They said he would regularly have outbursts in class when he was challenged.

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AAGM: NIGERIAN IN US ARRAIGNED FOR MURDER

This Day (Nigeria): AAGM

A Nigeria citizen in the United State, Mr. Peter Odighizuwa was Thursday in Virginia USA, arraigned with the murder of three persons and injuring others.

According to reports Thursday, said Odighizuwa, 43, had on Wednesday killed the dean, a professor and a student of a private law school in Virginia from where he was dismissed a day earlier for poor academic performance.

A day following his dismissal, Odighizuwa returned to the Appalachian School of Law and met with the Dean L Anthony Sutin in an attempt to reverse his dismissal.

But when his request was not granted Odighizuwa pulled out his hand gun, killing the dean and a professor who taught him contract law, Thomas Blackwell.

He then went downstairs and opened fire on students, killing one and injuring three others. Some students tackled and handcuffed him before he could do more harm.

Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media. (allafrica.com)

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SLAYINGS SUSPECT A GRAD OF CSU;

Amelia Robinson
Dayton Daily News (Ohio)

DAYTON - The 43-year-old man who is accused of shooting and killing three people and wounding three others at a Virginia law school graduated from Central State University and taught for Trotwood-Madison elementary schools during his days in the Miami Valley.

Peter Odighizuwa graduated from CSU in 1999 with a degree in mathematics, university spokesman Jim Cleveland said Friday.

Also, Trotwood-Madison School District spokeswoman Debbie Clements said Odighizuwa was employed by the district for four days in May 2000 as a substitute teacher at Westbrooke and at Olive Hill elementaries.

The work history of Odighizuwa in the Miami Valley began to be pieced together, one day after he was arraigned on charges of capital murder and attempted capital murder at the Appalachian School of Law, in Grundy, Va. A Buchanan County General District judge has scheduled a preliminary hearing for March 21.

Odighizuwa was a special education substitute at Westbrooke. Clements didn’t know what grade he taught at Olive Hill.

A mandatory criminal background check showed no arrest history and his personnel file showed there was no documentation of any problems, Clements said.

“Nobody remembers anything unusual about him or about his character,” she said. He had been approved in August to substitute again in the district if needed, Clements said.

“As of this month, he had not been called,” she said.

Odighizuwa’s wife, Abieyuwa, studied prenursing at Sinclair Community College between spring 1998 and winter quarter 2000, said Gary Honnert, the college’s director of public information.

“She was a student in good standing,” he said.

Computerized records also revealed that while Odighizuwa lived in the Miami Valley, Springfield police arrested him for speeding on March 26, 1998. He gave a Dayton address of 20 W. Mumma Ave., at the time.

How the violation was dealt with in court was not clear.

The same records search listed Odighizuwa as having a Springfield address, 820 E. John St., Apt. C., in the mid-1990s.

A neighbor there said a photograph of Odighizuwa did not look familiar, although a woman and her son, who would have matched Odighizuwa’s age, lived at that apartment within the past eight years.

Odighizuwa and his family moved to Virginia from Ohio in 2000 so he could attend the law school.

Police said Odighizuwa killed the school’s dean, a professor and a student Wednesday because he was angry that he had been suspended from school for the second time. He wounded three others in the student lobby of the school’s main building.

The three who were wounded remained in fair condition Friday.

Staff writers Mark Fisher and Derek Ali as well as The Springfield News Sun contributed.

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MAN HELD IN DEATHS HAS PORTLAND TIE

The Oregonian

Summary: A Nigerian immigrant accused of shooting 6 was once fired from Tri-Met

Peter O. Odighizuwa, a Nigerian immigrant accused of killing three people at a Virginia law school where he had been a student, spent at least seven years in the Portland area driving a Tri-Met bus before he was fired in 1989.

Tri-Met authorities said Odighizuwa drove a bus from July 1982 through May 1989, when he was terminated.

He was cited for reporting to work under the influence of drugs or alcohol, deliberate destruction of the district’s property and for posing an immediate or potential danger to public safety, said Mary Fetsch, a Tri-Met spokeswoman.

Two months later, Odighizuwa sued the company, claiming he was unlawfully discharged, according to Multnomah County court records.

Odighizuwa, according to his claim, had been on a bus at the Gateway Transit Center when a Tri-Met officer ordered him off. Instead, Odighizuwa drove the bus back to the company’s garage and the Tri-Met officer followed in a chase along Interstate 205 that involved a crash. In his claim, Odighizuwa said that the Tri-Met officer acted unreasonably by trying to run his bus off the road.

But the out-of-work bus driver withdrew the claim 10 days later.

Fetsch said she did not have Odighizuwa’s case file and could not provide details of the incident that led to his firing.

His local lawyer, Michael Schumann, remembered the case and when told his former client was now in custody in Virginia, said, “That’s the same guy? It’s amazing it’s the same person.”

Records show Odighizuwa had addresses in Northeast Portland, Southeast Portland and Vancouver, Wash.

Odighizuwa, 43, faces three counts of capital murder, three counts of attempted murder and six counts of using a firearm in the commission of a felony. He is accused of killing three people and wounding three others in a shooting spree Wednesday at the Appalachian School of Law in Grundy, Va., where he had been suspended because of poor grades.

He is accused of marching into the dean’s office, pulling out a.38-caliber semiautomatic pistol and fatally shooting the dean, 42-year-old L. Anthony Sutin. He then allegedly ran into the nearby office of a professor, Thomas F. Blackwell, 41, and shot him fatally in the neck before opening fire on several classmates, killing one, Angela Denise Dales, 33, and wounding three others.

Joseph Rose of The Oregonian contributed to this story.

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COLLEGE SHOOTINGS ARE RARE;

Tad Dickens
Roanoke Times & World News (Roanoke, VA)

Faced with academic disappointment, they seek solutions with loaded guns. Students, professors and administrators become their victims.

The scene played out again this week at the Appalachian School of Law, in Grundy. Police say Peter Odighizuwa, expelled for the second time because of bad grades, went to the school and killed three people - the school dean, a respected professor and a student - and wounded three others. The survivors remained in fair condition Friday.

Such acts have been rare in U.S. history. But a Radford University professor said he won’t be surprised to hear of more, particularly where great academic expectations lead to high stress and classroom failure.

“College campuses are wide open,” said Tod Burke, a criminal justice professor at Radford, who studies workplace and school violence. “Anyone can get on. Anyone can bring weapons and can get access to professors.

“And every student has a backpack.”

Hard numbers about campus shootings are not available, Burke said. But as he and a partner attempt to launch a full-scale study of the issue, they have gathered some anecdotal evidence of students bullying and threatening professors over academic issues, he said.

He likened it to workplace violence, even though it doesn’t happen nearly as often.

Once was enough for people at San Diego State University and the University of Iowa.

Bill Fuhrmeister, then public safety director at Iowa, remembered the case of Gang Lu when he heard about the shootings in Grundy.

“It sort of brought back flash memories of Nov. 1 of 1991, and of how rapidly tragedy can happen in a spur-of-the-moment type thing,” Fuhrmeister said.

Gang had already earned his doctorate in physics, and was no longer a student. But he reacted violently, killing five people in two buildings, after learning that members of the school’s physics and astronomy department passed over his dissertation paper for a coveted academic honor. Ten minutes after he began firing, he turned the gun on himself.

The killings at San Diego State University five years later also were surprising to those who knew of gunman Frederick Martin Davidson, because Davidson was not considered a failure, said Jan Andersen, associate dean of the school’s graduate division.

“Not too much has ever really come out except that he just cracked - absolutely couldn’t handle the pressure of what he perceived to be failure,” Andersen said.

But Davidson didn’t even allow time for faculty to critique his work before pulling a 9mm handgun he had stowed in a first-aid kit and firing at least 23 times. One of his victims, 32-year-old Chen Liang, formerly was a teacher at Virginia Tech.

The random unpredictability of such events at those schools did not lead to revamped public safety plans, officials said.

“You can’t just lock up the first-aid kits,” said John Carpenter, police chief at San Diego State.

“There was no consensus,” he said of attempts to prevent similar crimes. “There was nothing that could be done short of making our campus a fortress, and you can’t do that.”

Nor did Iowa make any major changes to a police force that does not carry firearms. Iowa City police are called to any scene that might require deadly force, said Charles Green, assistant vice president and director of public safety.

But students, faculty and staff became more vigilant in noticing and reporting people they thought might be troubled, and getting them help quickly, he said.

“Certainly the climate of the campus changed, in that things that people take for granted in times past, they don’t now,” Green said.

Both schools have built team approaches to identifying and helping troubled students, officials said.

“I think all of us try to treat people and their problems and do what we can to help, because we never really know what individual is on the point of losing it,” said Andersen, of San Diego State.

Neither school has seen a similar act of violence. But even as those officials discussed their situations Friday, news broke of another campus shooting, this time at a Florida community college. That, coupled with the Grundy shootings, could bring a new look at campus safety, they said.

Whatever changes occur, they probably won’t include insulating university community members from each other, said Burke, the Radford professor.

“We are not going to advocate barricading professors,” he said. “That is not the purpose of a teaching institution. We cannot live in fear, and that includes professors, students and staff.”

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Suspect drove Tri-Met bus in Portland for seven years

The Associated Press State & Local Wire

The Nigerian immigrant and failed law student accused of killing three people at a Virginia law school spent at least seven years in the Portland area driving a Tri-Met bus in the 1980s.

Tri-Met authorities said Peter O. Odighizuwa, 43, drove a bus from July 1982 through May 1989, when he was fired.

Two months later, Odighizuwa sued the company, claiming he was unlawfully discharged, according to Multnomah County court records.

Odighizuwa, according to his claim, had been on a bus at the Gateway Transit Center when a Tri-Met officer ordered him off.

Instead, Odighizuwa drove the bus back to the company’s garage and the Tri-Met officer followed in a chase along interstate 205 that involved a crash. In his claim, Odighizuwa said that the Tri-Met officer acted unreasonably by trying to run his bus off the road. He withdrew the claim 10 days later

Odighizuwa’s employment record at Tri-Met included citations for reporting to work under the influence of drugs or alcohol, deliberate destruction of the district’s property and for posing an immediate or potential danger to public safety, said Mary Fetsch, a Tri-Met spokeswoman.

Fetsch said she did not have Odighizuwa’s case file and could not provide details of the incident that led to his firing.

His local lawyer, Michael Schumann, remembered the case and when told his former client was now in custody in Virginia, said, “That’s the same guy? It’s amazing it’s the same person.”

Odighizuwa, a law student who recently flunked out of school for a second time, opened fire with a handgun at the Appalachian School of Law in Grundy, Va., on Wednesday, police said.

Dean L. Anthony Sutin and professor Thomas Blackwell were slain in their offices and student Angela Dales, 33, died later at a hospital. Three other students were wounded.

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