Man arrested for selling rifle to ODU shooting suspect
Old Dominion University Shooting: FBI raid suspect's home
Court records show that less than two years after Mohamed Bailor Jalloh was released from federal prison for attempting to aid the Islamic State, he opened fire in a classroom at Virginia’s Old Dominion University on Thursday before ROTC students subdued and killed him.
NORFOLK, Va. - A person has been arrested for allegedly selling a rifle to Mohamed Bailor Jalloh, a convicted ISIS supporter who opened fire in a classroom at Old Dominion University on Thursday.
What we know:
Kenya Chapman is charged with making false statements while purchasing a firearm and dealing firearms without a license.
Chapman told agents in an interview that he stole the gun from a car in Newport News, Virginia, about a year before the shooting and recently sold it to Jalloh. Chapman said he met Jalloh at work and that Jalloh told him he needed the gun for protection as a delivery driver, according to court papers. Chapman told agents he knew Jalloh had spent some time behind bars but denied knowing he had a previous felony conviction.
Chapman told agents he had no idea the man would commit the attack, the affidavit says.
The backstory:
On Thursday, one person was killed and two others injured after a shooting at Old Dominion University.
Officials say Mohamed Bailor Jalloh yelled "Allahu akbar" before opening fire in a classroom. ROTC students subdued and killed him.
Officials say Jalloh had a gun with an obliterated serial number, potentially complicating investigators’ efforts to determine how the man with a previous felony conviction obtained a firearm, according to a law enforcement official.
Dig deeper:
Jalloh pleaded guilty in October 2016 to providing material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization.
A federal judge sentenced him in 2017 to an 11‑year prison term, with credit for time served dating back to his July 2016 arrest.
He was released from federal custody on Dec. 23, 2024. It remains unclear why he was freed early. Federal inmates can earn time off their sentences for several reasons, but it’s not yet known whether any applied in Jalloh’s case.
According to Fox News, Jalloh was a naturalized U.S. citizen from Sierra Leone.
According to the Justice Department, Jalloh met members of ISIS during a trip to Africa. When he returned to the U.S., one of the ISIS members he met connected Jalloh to a contact who was actually an FBI source.
Officials said Jalloh told the source that he had "thought about conducting an attack all the time, and that he was close to doing so at one point," like the 2009 attack at Fort Hood in Texas that killed 13 and wounded 32 others.
Federal officials arrested Jalloh in July 2016, after purchasing a rifle at a gun dealership in Northern Virginia.