2016 UCLA shooting

On June 1, 2016, two men were killed in a murder-suicide at a School of Engineering building on the campus of University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). The gunman was identified as Mainak Sarkar, an Indian-born 38-year-old former UCLA Ph.D student. The victim was William Scott Klug, a professor who was Sarkar's thesis advisor while Sarkar was a student at UCLA. A woman, later identified as Sarkar's estranged wife, was found dead in Minnesota during the subsequent investigation into the shooting, and is suspected to have been killed by Sarkar several days before the UCLA shooting.

Details

The shooting occurred at a fourth-floor office in Engineering IV, a building that is part of the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science.

Immediately after the shooting, Christopher Lynch, an aerospace and mechanical engineering professor who heard the gunshots, went to Klug's office and held the door shut, after which he heard another shot and then silence. Another professor said she heard someone fall after the last shot. Lynch later said that he did not feel the gunman try to open it but suspected the gunman heard yells for the hallway to be cleared out and that police were called in. Lynch was credited for potentially saving lives during the shooting.

A campus-wide alert to avoid the area was issued via UCLA's BruinAlert system at 9:49 a.m. PDT, and Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) officers were summoned to the building shortly before 10:00 a.m. PDT. When officers responded at Engineering IV and met Lynch, he gave them his office key so they could check rooms, and then left with another professor to check on students who locked themselves in the laboratories on the lower floor.

Two handguns and a suicide note were found near the two bodies. Shortly after the shooting, police sources told the ''Los Angeles Times'' that from the appearance of the bodies, a student may have killed a professor. At least three shots were fired in the shooting.

Aftermath

Based on initial reports of the shooting, authorities mistook it for an attempted mass shooting, prompting a massive police response. School officials put the campus on lockdown as hundreds of UCLA and LAPD officers, including SWAT officers, and officers of other agencies searched the area. A nearby hospital and three elementary schools were also put on lockdown. When the lockdown was lifted just after noon ( PDT), classes at UCLA were canceled for the day. An apartment traced to the gunman was searched by police, and a description of his vehicle, which had not been located, was released.

While the school was in lockdown, people at many locations found it difficult to shelter in place, as few of the doors had locks for events of this nature. As a result, some students resorted to creative mechanisms to keep the doors closed. Scott Waugh, the school's executive vice-chancellor and provost, said the university will review its active-shooter protocols. The issue was previously brought up during deadly mass shootings at Virginia Tech and Sandy Hook Elementary School, where students and teachers also had to improvise to keep the doors to classrooms closed. Although some schools across the country installed locks to doors, a more widespread adoption of this security measure was hindered by "the cost to retrofit doors and local fire codes that require doors to open in one motion during emergencies", according to experts. Some schools and universities disagreed about the importance of door locks during active-shooter situations; the University of Colorado stated that it wanted students and teachers to rely on training instead.

U.S. President Barack Obama was briefed about the shooting aboard Air Force One, according to White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest