UCLA gunman identified: Student killed professor over accusations of stolen code

Author: RT

June 2, 2016 at 11:38

A shooting on the UCLA campus was the work of a disgruntled former engineering PhD student who accused his professor of stealing his code.

Mainak Sarkar fatally shot his professor William Klug inside an engineering building on the University of California, Los Angeles campus on Wednesday before shooting himself.

Sarkar used a 9mm semi-automatic pistol and had no known criminal history, CBS News reported.

Klug, 39, was an associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, and had helped Sarkar with his 2013 doctoral dissertation.

Despite this, Sarkar wrote a since-de-leted blog post in which he described his hatred for Klug, calling him a “very sick person” who should not be trusted.

Before enrolling at UCLA, Sarkar earned a master’s degree in aeronautics and astronautics f-rom Stanford University in 2005.

The shooting took place shortly before 10 a.m., and prompted a massive response involving three local police forces and two federal law enforcement agencies. The incident became nationwide news within minutes of a campus alert being broadcast.

The UCLA campus was placed on lockdown during the incident, with students and staff being told to shelter in place. Classes were canceled for the day, but campus operations were expected to return to normal on Thursday, except for engineering classes, which are canceled for the rest of the week, UCLA vice chancellor provost Scott Waugh said Wednesday.

“Faculty, staff and students should show up tomorrow and go through their regular routines and complete the quarter as planned," Waugh said. "We will go ahead with commencement and final examinations over the next few weeks and hope to return our campus to normal and return the Bruin community to its normal operations."