More Amy Bishop

Evidently the Huntsville shootings weren't the first instance of Amy Bishop taking matters into her own hands. It was apparently an accident:

The Globe reported at the time that Amy Bishop had shot her 18-year-old brother, Seth M. Bishop, an accomplished violinist who had won a number of science awards.

John Polio, chief of police at the time, said Amy Bishop, who was 20 at the time, had asked her mother, Judith, in the presence of her brother how to unload a round from the chamber of a 12-gauge shotgun.

Polio told the Globe that while Amy Bishop was handling the weapon, it fired, wounding Seth Bishop in the abdomen. He was pronounced dead at a hospital 46 minutes after the Dec. 6, 1986 shooting.

"Every indication at this point in time leads us to believe it was an accidental shooting," Polio said at the time.

But then there is this at the end of the article:

But Frazier said the media had been fed an incorrect story. He said that there was an argument at the home on Hollis Avenue and Amy Bishop had fired three shots, then fled the house and pointed the shotgun in a motorist in an attempted carjack. She was then arrested at gunpoint by officers.

A video:



Still more about the Massachusetts end of the story:

Contacted later at home, Chief Polio, now 87, said that he remembered the shooting and that he turned the investigation over to the District Attorney’s office for an inquest in 1986 because there were questions about whether it was accidental.
The office of then Dist. Atty. William Delahunt determined that no complaint would be issued, Polio said.
As far as he is concerned, Polio said, he believes his department did everything correctly in turning the case over to the district attorney’s office.

"It is a far different story that was reported back then," Chief Frazier said. "I cannot tell you what the thought process was behind our releasing her at the time." Frazier said he spoke with a retired police deputy who did the booking process in 1986 and he told him he was contacted by the Police Chief John Polio at that time and told to release her.

Frazier said every officer who was working has retired except for one, whom he spoke with.

John Polio:





The 1986 report has surfaced. It is in PDF format and is in six pages.

You can't make this stuff up.

More details of yesterday's shooting are at this New York Times link:

On Friday, Ms. Bishop presided over her regular neuroscience class before going to a biology faculty meeting on the third floor of the Shelby Center for Science and Technology.

There she sat quietly for about 30 or 40 minutes, said one faculty member who had spoken to people who were in the room. Then Ms. Bishop pulled out a 9-millimeter handgun and began shooting, firing several rounds before her gun either jammed or ran out of ammunition, the police said. At least one person in the room tried to stop Ms. Bishop and prevent further bloodshed, said Sgt. Mark Roberts of the Huntsville Police Department.

After Ms. Bishop left the room, the police said, she dumped the gun — for which she did not have a permit — in a second-floor bathroom. The people left behind barred the door, fearing she would return, the faculty member said.

Ms. Bishop was arrested outside the building minutes later, Sergeant Roberts said at a morning news conference on Saturday.