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What we know:

  • Mainak Sarkar shot William S. Klug, his former professor, and then committed suicide in an engineering building at UCLA on Wednesday morning, Los Angeles police say.
  • Sarkar, who came to UCLA armed with two pistols and extra ammunition, had accused Klug of stealing his computer code and giving it to someone else, the LAPD said.
  • Sarkar, 38, lived in Minnesota and appears also to have killed a woman in a small town in that state. Police have not identified the woman found shot to death in Brooklyn Park, Minn., but Ashley Hasti, who married Sarkar in 2011, is listed as the resident of the home in which the body was found.
  • Sarkar left a note at the UCLA shooting scene, which led police to his St. Paul, Minn. home, where they found a "kill list" bearing the Minnesota victim's name, along with Klug's and that of another UCLA professor, LAPD Chief Charlie Beck said.
  • Klug, 39, was a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering.
  • The second UCLA professor on Sarkar's list has not been named. He is safe.
  • UCLA classes -- except for those in engineering -- resumed Thursday.

No engineering classes this week at UCLA

Final exams and commencement will proceed as scheduled next week at UCLA, officials said Wednesday afternoon. Most classes will resume Thursday except for in the engineering programs, said executive vice chancellor and provost Scott L. Waugh.

“The campus remains in a state of sorrow over the tragic shooting and loss of two members of the Bruin community this morning,” Waugh said in an afternoon news briefing.

“We’re trying to restore the campus to order as quickly as possible,” he added. “We’re very saddened by the loss of these two lives today, but we’re hoping we can recover quickly.”

Waught declined to identify the names of the two who died in what has been described as a murder-suicide.

The university is offering extended hours for counseling to accommodate students, faculty and staff.

Waugh said the school is working to ensure that the campus is safe.

Our primary goal right now is to review all of our security procedures to make sure our campus is as secure as possible,” Waugh said. He said he was “troubled” by reports of doors that would not lock but pleased about how the school's notification system worked.


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