Students complained about Ala. professor

February 18, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (AP) — Students banded together to let administrators know something wasn’t quite right about Professor Amy Bishop. She taught by reading straight out of the textbook, never made eye contact and liked to remind people constantly that she went to Harvard.

“We could tell something was off, that she was not like other teachers,” said nursing student Caitlin Phillips, who was among those who complained to administrators at least three times a year ago that the biology professor was unsettling and ineffective in the classroom. Some students also signed a petition against Bishop.

Students said they had no reason to think she might turn violent. But after Bishop’s arrest Friday on charges of shooting to death three colleagues during a faculty meeting at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, the complaints add to the picture that has emerged of her as a brilliant but erratic figure.

Though police have not released a motive for the shootings, colleagues said the 44-year-old neuroscientist was simmering with resentment over being denied tenure last March.

Her court-appointed lawyer, Roy W. Miller, declined to comment on the case. “It is just so premature,” he said. “I just got involved.”

Since the shooting, other disturbing behavior from Bishop has come to light.

In 1986, she killed her 18-year-old brother with a shotgun blast in Braintree, Mass., then demanded a getaway car at gunpoint from an auto dealer, authorities said. She claimed the gun went off accidentally, and she was never charged.

Rep. William Delahunt, D-Mass., the district attorney at the time, said Wednesday he has limited memory of the case. He spoke with The Associated Press in Israel, where he was traveling.

“I understand I haven’t had a real opportunity to get into the details of the case, but I suspect when I return I’ll have an opportunity to become debriefed,” the congressman said.

Bishop and her husband also were scrutinized in 1993 after someone sent pipe bombs to a Harvard professor with whom she worked. The bombs did not go off, and no one was ever charged.

In 2002, Bishop was charged with assault, battery and disorderly conduct after a tirade at the International House of Pancakes in Peabody, Mass. Police said Bishop became incensed when she found out another mother had received the restaurant’s last booster seat.

Bishop began shouting profanities and punched the woman in the head while yelling, “I am Dr. Amy Bishop!” according to the police report. She admitted the assault in court, and the charges were dismissed six months later after she stayed out of trouble.