How a man killed UCLA professor and killed himself
The man suspected of shooting and killing a UCLA professor Wednesday
before turning the gun on himself is also the suspect in another
homicide that police believe occurred before the campus shooting, Los
Angeles Police Department Chief Charlie Beck said today.
Police identified the gunman as former UCLA student Mainak Sarkar. Beck
said that Sarkar, who earned a Ph.D. from the school in 2013, was
"heavily armed."
Investigators found two semiautomatic guns on him at the scene of the crime. Both were legally purchased.
Sarkar had a note on him requesting that whoever found the note check on his cat; it then listed his Minnesota address.
Beck said today that police believe Sarkar drove to Los Angeles in "the last couple of days" before the shooting.
When police searched his home, they found a list with the names of three
people: two UCLA professors and a Minnesota woman. One of the
professors, William Klug, was the shooting victim on Wednesday; the
other was off campus and was unharmed.
The woman, who has not been publicly identified, was found dead of a
gunshot wound at her residence in a town near St. Paul, where Sarkar
lived.
Brooklyn Park police in Minnesota said today that they were notified by
the LAPD and asked to go check on someone in relation to the UCLA
shooting. "Upon arrival, officers located one adult female deceased from
an apparent gunshot wound. Early indications are the shooting occurred
prior to the UCLA event," the Brooklyn Park police said in a statement.
In Klug's slaying, investigators are focusing on Sarkar's grades and
what was described as a longer-standing poor relationship between the
two men. The LAPD said it believes Klug was one of Sarkar's teachers.
Beck also told reporters today that he was aware of a social media post
that Sarkar allegedly wrote to bash Klug. But Beck said that the posts
he has reviewed "contained no death threats. There [was] some harsh
language" but "certainly nothing that would be considered homicidal."
As for the second professor on the list, he was aware that "Sarkar had
issues with him," Beck said, but didn't believe it would reach "the
level of homicide."
"I don't think either of them expected to see him," Beck said of the two professors.
UCLA confirmed that Sarkar was a graduate student there from the fall of
2007 until the summer of 2013, when he received a Ph.D. in mechanical
engineering from the school.
Klug joined the UCLA faculty in 2003 and headed an eponymous research
group that studied theoretical and computational biomechanics. The
school said he is survived by his wife and their two children.
Investigators worked through the night to understand what happened and
why. Beck said today that Sarkar's motive may be connected to a dispute
over intellectual property, which UCLA has denied.
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