A Missouri college fired a geography instructor and filed a report with police after students complained the man had joked about being a suicide bomber. Ozarks Technical Community College spokesman Joel Doepker said several students had complained that the teacher walked into class Wednesday, set his briefcase on a table and said, "I'm a suicide bomber," the Springfield News-Leader reported in its Friday editions. "As to the why, I really don't know. But after the class, several students complained to campus administrators about the comment," Doepker said. The part-time instructor was fired Thursday. The students said the comment was inappropriate after the Virginia Tech massacre this week. Ozark police and the college did not release the teacher's name pending an investigation. The instructor told an investigator "that he did make a comment that he was a suicide bomber to his classroom as a joke, to lighten up the mood as the classroom was preparing for a test," a police statement said.
The instructor reportedly felt bad about making the comment after he was informed by at least one student that the comment was inappropriate, according to the news release. "Even without the Virginia Tech situation, (the instructor's comments) still would have been cause for termination," Doepker said.