When a former soldier opens fire on a university campus, the press rushes to tell you who he was and what he said. The story that actually determines whether it happens again is who let him out, who sold him the gun, and why the systems that were supposed to stop him failed. The Old Dominion shooting on March 12, 2026, is already being framed as a tale of two soldiers and a backstory. The editorial failure is treating that as the main event.
The Real Story of Old Dominion Is Policy Failure, Not the Shooter’s Backstory
On March 12, 2026, at approximately 10:49 a.m., a gunman opened fire inside Constant Hall at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia, during an ROTC class. One person was killed: Lt. Col. Brandon A. Shah, an Army officer and ODU alumnus who was teaching that day. Two others were wounded. ROTC students in the classroom subdued and killed the gunman, preventing further loss of life. The shooter was identified as Mohamed Bailor Jalloh, a former Army National Guardsman who had pleaded guilty in 2016 to attempting to provide material support to the Islamic State and had been released from federal custody in December 2024. The FBI is investigating the incident as an act of terrorism. According to The New York Times, the mainstream narrative has centred on the parallel lives of two soldiers and the suspect’s path. What deserves the spotlight is why someone with his record was out of prison, how he obtained a firearm despite being barred from possessing one, and why campus and federal systems did not connect the dots.
Early Release and the RDAP Loophole
Jalloh was sentenced in October 2017 to 11 years in prison. He was released roughly two and a half years early through the Bureau of Prisons’ Residential Drug Abuse Program (RDAP), which can reduce sentences for eligible inmates. As reported by the Anchorage Daily News in March 2026, federal law should have barred violent offenders and those with terrorism-related convictions from receiving such time credits. A bureaucratic failure meant the BOP’s excluded-offenses list was not updated during union negotiations, so individuals with terrorism convictions were able to earn RDAP credits. The Bureau of Prisons has since closed that loophole; after canceling the relevant union contract, no one with terrorism-related charges has received time credits under the program. The New York Times coverage of the shooting highlighted the suspect’s background and the circumstances of the attack. The policy takeaway is that prevention depends on closing such gaps before the next attack, not on profiling the last attacker.
Illegal Gun Acquisition and Enforcement Gaps
Federal authorities arrested Kenya Chapman for allegedly selling a firearm to Jalloh, who was legally prohibited from possessing guns because of his terrorism conviction. As ABC News reported in March 2026, the arrest underscored how a convicted terrorist was able to obtain a weapon through an illegal transfer. The narrative of “who the shooter was” does nothing to explain how he got the gun; that story is entirely about enforcement, straw purchases, and the limits of background checks for prohibited persons. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and other local outlets have repeatedly documented how “what to know” storm and safety coverage defaults to tips and closures. The same pattern applies to mass violence: the press often leads with the perpetrator and the drama, while the mechanisms that allowed the attack go under-examined.
What This Actually Means
The evidence adds up to a simple point: the Old Dominion shooting was made possible by a known policy failure (early release of a terrorism convict) and a known enforcement failure (an illegal gun sale to a prohibited person). Media framing that centres on the shooter’s backstory and “parallel lives” obscures that. It also reinforces the pattern scholars have documented: episodic, shooter-centric coverage shapes how the public attributes responsibility and thinks about solutions. The reader should walk away understanding that the story that matters for prevention is the one about RDAP, the BOP, and the illegal transfer of a firearm, not the one about two soldiers diverging. The New York Times and other outlets have a choice about which story leads. So far, the wrong one is getting the spotlight.
What Is the RDAP Loophole?
The Residential Drug Abuse Program (RDAP) is a federal Bureau of Prisons program that allows certain inmates to earn sentence reductions by completing substance abuse treatment. Congress and BOP policy intended to exclude violent offenders and those convicted of terrorism-related crimes from receiving these time credits. The “RDAP loophole” refers to the period when the BOP’s internal list of excluded offenses was not updated (reportedly because of union negotiations), so that inmates with terrorism convictions could still earn credits and be released early. After the Old Dominion shooting, the BOP closed the loophole so that no one with terrorism-related charges can receive RDAP time credits.
Sources
The New York Times, Anchorage Daily News, ABC News, Old Dominion University, Virginia Attorney General