2010 University of Alabama in Huntsville shooting

On February 12, 2010, three people were killed and three others wounded in a shooting at the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) in Huntsville, Alabama, United States. During a routine meeting of the biology department attended by approximately 12 people, Amy Bishop, a biology professor at the university, began shooting those nearest her with a Ruger P95 handgun.

Bishop was charged with one count of capital murder and three counts of attempted murder. On September 11, 2012, she pleaded guilty to the charges after family members of victims petitioned the judge against use of the death penalty. The jury heard a condensed version of the evidence on September 24, as required by Alabama law. The same day, Bishop was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.^[1]

In March 2009, Bishop had been denied tenure at UAH, making spring 2010 her last semester there, per university policy. Due to the attention Bishop attracted as a result of the shooting, previous violent incidents in which she had been involved or implicated were reevaluated. In 1986, she had shot and killed her brother in Braintree, Massachusetts, in an incident that was, at the time, officially ruled an accident. She was also questioned, along with her husband, after a 1993 pipe bomb incident was directed at her lab supervisor.^[2]