The UCLA campus will reopen Thursday, with a planned vigil and counseling for students and faculty following a daylong closure prompted by a murder-suicide.
The shooting triggered fears that at least one gunman was on a rampage.
The murder victim was identified by students and colleagues as 39-year-old William Scott Klug of El Segundo, a father of two and associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering. Colleagues told the Los Angeles Times
that Klug was both brilliant and kind.
On Thursday morning, police identified the shooter as Mainak Sarkar, a UCLA engineering graduate student.
The shooting was reported shortly before 10 a.m. Wednesday in Boelter Hall, part of the Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science, and the entire campus was placed on lockdown, along with three Los Angeles Unified
School District schools nearby.
The incident prompted a massive response involving three local police departments, two federal law enforcement agencies and the Los Angeles Fire
Department. One of the responders -- the Los Angeles Police Department --
deployed some of its specialized units, including the SWAT team and the bomb
squad, and the murder-suicide probe is now in the hands of Robbery Homicide.
The LAPD went on tactical alert, meaning officers were kept on past the end of their shifts, as an intensive law enforcement sweep was carried out amid fears of an active shooter on the Westside campus.
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The initial reports of a shooting prompted the university to send a "Bruin Alert" to all students and staff notifying them to avoid the School of Engineering area or shelter in place. Some students reported via social media hunkering down in restrooms or classrooms, using anything they could -- belts, furniture -- to prevent entry from the outside.
Even after the campus was deemed secure, all classes were canceled for the day, along with evening activities, but Scott Waugh, UCLA vice chancellor
and provost, said campus operations would return to normal today -- except for engineering classes, which will be canceled for the rest of the week. Waugh
said this weekend's and next week's final exams would not be disrupted.
"We want to resume normal operations as quickly as possible so we will resume scheduled classes tomorrow morning,'' Waugh said Wednesday.
"Faculty, staff and students should show up tomorrow and go through their regular routines and complete the quarter as planned. We will go ahead with commencement and final examinations over the next few weeks and hope to
return our campus to normal and return the Bruin community to its normal
operations.
"This is a tragic event but it does show that with adequate preparation and good cooperation with all our law enforcement agencies, we can bring it to a successful close."
UCLA officials said the university is offering counseling services to students and staff affected by the shooting. The university has designated "healing spaces'' on the campus where students can gather, and counselors will be available for students at the Counseling and Psychological Services office.
The Staff and Faculty Counseling Center at 10920 Wilshire Blvd. remained open until 10 p.m. Wednesday and will be open again from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Thursday and 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Friday.
The UCLA community was invited to a candlelight vigil at 8:30 p.m. in Bruin Plaza.
LAPD Chief Charlie Beck, in summing up what had happened, said late Wednesday morning that two men were found dead inside a small office in the
building, and a gun was found nearby.
"A homicide and a suicide occurred in the engineering part of the UCLA campus on the south side,'' Beck said. "It appears it is entirely contained.
We believe there are no suspects outstanding, and no continuing threat to UCLA's campus.''
Beck said at least three shots were fired. He confirmed evidence was found at the scene "that could be a suicide note, but we do not know that at this point.''
Once the killings were determined to be a murder-suicide, police continued to thoroughly sweep through the building and several adjacent buildings ``out of an abundance of caution,'' as Beck put it.
As police began clearing classrooms, students were seen walking from buildings, often with their hands raised and some being subjected to pat-downs as they left.
Along with the LAPD and UCLA campus police, the FBI and federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives both dispatched agents to the
campus.
Also responding to the scene were police from Santa Monica College, where a shooting spree occurred June 7, 2013, ending when officers killed the gunman in the campus library. Five other people died in that shooting.
Fairburn and Warner elementary schools and Emerson Middle School, all of which are located near UCLA, were placed on lockdown during the investigation, the LAUSD reported. They resumed normal operations shortly after noon.
President Barack Obama was briefed aboard Air Force One about the UCLA shooting, according to the White House.
According to Klug's online biography, he earned a bachelor's degree from Westmont College in 1998, a master's at UCLA in 1999 and a doctorate from
Caltech in 2003.
An account benefiting the Klug family has been established on the website Gofundme.com, with more than $5,000 raised in the first two hours.
Donations to the Klug family memorial fund can be made at gofundme.com/27gqffg
City News Service contributed to this report.
