Official identifies UCLA shooting victim as engineering professor

Associated Press

LOS ANGELES

A law-enforcement official says the victim of a murder-suicide that locked down the UCLA campus for hours was a mechanical-engineering professor.

William S. Klug was gunned down in an engineering building office Wednesday morning, according to the official who has knowledge of the investigation but wasn’t authorized to publicly discuss it.

The shooter has not yet been identified.

Colleagues of Klug’s tell The Associated Press he was a married father of two and a kind, gentle person.

UCLA biology and chemistry Professor Charles Knobler said Wednesday that those who knew Klug are in shock. He described the professor as “a very lively, lovable, likable guy.”

Earlier in the day, hundreds of heavily armed officers swarmed the sprawling UCLA campus after a shooting forced thousands to barricade themselves in classrooms and offices, some using belts and chairs to secure doors, until authorities determined the gunman and single victim were dead.

About two hours after the first 911 call came in around 10 a.m., with the center of campus still saturated with officers, Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck said it was a murder-suicide and declared the threat over.

Two men were dead in an engineering building office, and authorities found a gun and what might be a suicide note, he said. Authorities said a motive was not immediately clear.

The response to the shooting was overwhelming: Teams of officers in helmets and bulletproof vests looking for victims and suspects ran across the normally tranquil campus. Some with high-powered rifles yelled for bystanders to flee.

Groups of officers stormed into buildings that had been locked down and cleared hallways as police helicopters hovered overhead.

Advised by university text alerts to turn out the lights and lock the doors where they were, many students let friends and family know they were safe in social media posts. Some described frantic evacuation scenes, while others wrote that their doors weren’t locking and posted photos of photocopiers and foosball tables they used as barricades.

It was the week before final exams at UCLA, whose 43,000 students make it the largest campus in the University of California system. Classes were canceled Wednesday but would resume today.