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This Article is From Jun 02, 2016

UCLA Shooting: Police Official IDs Victim As A Professor

UCLA Shooting: Police Official IDs Victim As A Professor
A student leaves the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) campus after a shooting on campus, June 1, 2016. (AFP Photo)
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 those who knew Klug are in shock. He described the professor as "a very lively, lovable, likable guy."

Hundreds of heavily armed officers swarmed the sprawling UCLA campus Wednesday following a shooting that forced thousands to barricade themselves in classrooms and offices, some using belts and chairs to secure doors, until authorities determined the gunman and the professor he shot were dead.

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.
 

Students inform their relatives as they emerge from sheltering in place after a campus shooting occurred at UCLA. (AFP Photo)

It was the week before final exams at the University of California, Los Angeles, whose 43,000 students make it the largest campus in the University of California system. Classes were canceled Wednesday, but they are expected to resume Thursday.

Olivia Cabadas, a 22-year-old nursing student, was getting ready to take a quiz in the mathematics building when her classmates began getting cellphone alerts. Through a window, they could see students rushing down the hallway.

An officer yelled that everyone should get out.

"It was just a little surreal - this is actually happening," Cabadas said. "It was chaos."

Those locked down inside classrooms described a nervous calm. Some said they had to rig the doors closed with whatever was at hand because they would not lock.

SWAT officers cleared occupants one by one at the mathematical sciences building. One man walked out with his hands up and was told to get on his knees. An armed officer searched him and his backpack, then sent him on his way with his hands still in the air.

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