Biden DOJ Let the ODU Terrorist’s Weapon Dealer Walk With a Letter of Apology
The left lectures you every single day about keeping dangerous weapons off the streets.
Then they actually get a chance to do it – and they hand a criminal a piece of paper and send him home.
Now a decorated Army combat veteran is dead, killed in his own classroom, because Biden's Justice Department thought an apology letter was a perfectly reasonable response to a serial illegal weapons dealer.
Biden DOJ Had the ODU Weapon Dealer in 2021 and Let Him Go
Lt. Col. Brandon Shah spent his career serving America. He enlisted in 2003, deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan, earned two Bronze Stars, and spent his final years teaching the next generation of military officers at Old Dominion University's ROTC program.
On March 12, 2026, a convicted ISIS supporter named Mohamed Jalloh walked into Shah's classroom, confirmed it was an ROTC class, shouted "Allahu Akbar," and opened fire.
Shah was shot multiple times and died at the hospital.
Two other servicemembers were wounded before ROTC cadets rushed Jalloh and killed him with their bare hands – stopping a bloodbath before it got worse.
Here's what you need to know about how Jalloh got his weapon.
The man now federally charged with selling Jalloh the firearm – Kenya Chapman – was caught three years earlier conducting straw purchases of three separate weapons. All three of those guns were later recovered at crime scenes. One of them turned up at a homicide.
Biden's DOJ had Chapman dead to rights. Straw purchasing is a federal felony. Three guns. Three crime scenes. One murder weapon.
They let him go. No charges. No jail. No prosecution.
Chapman signed an apology letter and walked out the door a free man.
Three years later, he sold the weapon used to murder a war hero.
Kenya Chapman Straw Purchased Three Weapons — All Recovered at Crime Scenes
This is not complicated. Straw purchasing – buying a firearm on behalf of someone legally prohibited from owning one – is a federal crime carrying up to ten years in prison. When Biden's DOJ had Chapman in 2021, the evidence was overwhelming. The weapons were recovered. The trail was documented. The connection to a homicide was already established.
They chose not to act.
Meanwhile, Jalloh himself was walking the streets because Biden's Bureau of Prisons released him nearly three years early in December 2024 – cutting short an 11-year terrorism sentence for attempting to provide material support to ISIS.
Jalloh had originally plotted an attack modeled on the 2009 Fort Hood massacre. Federal prosecutors had sought 20 years. A judge gave him 11. Biden's bureaucrats shaved off nearly three more.
Two separate Biden administration decisions. One dead American hero.
Soros-Backed Prosecutor Ramin Fatehi Refused to Mention University Already a So-Called Gun-Free Zone
Hours after the attack, Norfolk's Soros-funded Commonwealth Attorney Ramin Fatehi took a podium and told the cameras that America suffers from a "national sickness" and a "cult of gun absolutism."
He blamed Republican lawmakers. He blamed the Supreme Court. "If you're looking for someone to blame, don't look at anyone up here," he told reporters. "Look at our lawmakers who don't have the courage to implement sensible gun control measures."
He didn't mention that the killer was a federally convicted ISIS supporter who never should have been free.
He didn't mention that ODU is already a so-called gun-free zone – meaning the only people following the rules were the unarmed ROTC cadets who had to kill a terrorist with a knife because they were prohibited from carrying their own weapons.
Fatehi knows as well as anyone that criminals don't fill out background check forms. He knows illegal firearm dealers don't respond to new legislation. What he's selling isn't a solution to violence. It's a power grab dressed up in sympathy.
Democrats have spent years insisting they want to get illegal weapons off the streets.
The Virginia Legislature just passed even more restrictions on law-abiding gun owners – ramming through an Assault Weapons ban on semi-autos they don’t like, and limiting magazine size below standard capacity.
None of it will stop a mad man intent on destruction. The only thing that gan is a good man stepping in. A ROTC cadet was literally restricted to a knife in a gun fight.
Thankfully, he was in closing distance and able to overcome the former National Guardsman’s advantage.
Had the distance been any further the bloodshed would almost certainly have been far worse.
The gun control vultures’ response is always the same.
They’re interested in disarming law-abiding citizens, not prosecuting the criminals.
Jalloh could have been stopped – even after he walked from jail early, the same gun grabbers could have still stopped Jalloh.
They had the dealer. They had the evidence. They had the dead-bang case.
Instead the Biden DOJ wrote him a note and sent him home.
The lesson here isn't that America needs more laws. The lesson is that the left doesn't actually want to enforce the ones on the books – because enforcing them means prosecuting criminals, and prosecuting criminals doesn't disarm the people they really want disarmed: law-abiding Americans who vote the wrong way.
Lt. Col. Brandon Shah earned two Bronze Stars serving the country that just failed to protect him. The least this country can do is tell the truth about why.
Sources:
- Bill Melugin, "The man charged by DOJ for selling the gun used by the ODU terrorist," Fox News, March 13, 2026.
- Matt Vespa, "So, That's How the Old Dominion University Terrorist Was Able to Obtain a Firearm," Townhall, March 13, 2026.
- Associated Press, "Justice Department charges man who sold gun to Old Dominion University shooter," AP, March 13, 2026.
- Dominique Debucquoy-Dodley, "ODU gunman who killed ROTC instructor had prior ISIS conviction, was released early," Fox News, March 12, 2026.
- AWR Hawkins, "Norfolk DA Blames Old Dominion Shooting on 'Cult of Gun Absolutism,'" Breitbart, March 13, 2026.
- Daily Signal Staff, "Old Dominion University Shooter Reportedly Had Prison Sentence for Aiding ISIS Cut Short," The Daily Signal, March 12, 2026.
