Officers swarm UCLA in massive response to murder-suicide

Police respond to a report of a possible shooter at UCLA. The campus of 43,000 students was placed on lockdown. Police respond to a report of a possible shooter at UCLA. The campus of 43,000 students was placed on lockdown. Photo: Associated Press Photo: Associated Press Image 1 of / 3 Caption Close Officers swarm UCLA in massive response to murder-suicide 1 / 3 Back to Gallery

LOS ANGELES — UCLA students went to school Wednesday expecting to take on routine end-of-school-year tasks: final exams and presentations. But those concerns were forgotten around 10 a.m., when cell phones buzzed to life across campus, announcing that a shooting had taken place.

Within minutes, thousands of students found themselves racing for cover, building makeshift barricades against classroom doors that wouldn’t lock and arming themselves with anything they could find as information about the gunfire — some of it rumor about a wave of assailants — spread across campus via text messages and social media.

In the end, it was a murder-suicide involving two men inside an engineering building near the campus’ south side, Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck said.

Several sources identified the victim as William Klug, 39, a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering who studied the interaction between mechanics and biology and was the father of two young children.

Klug was described as both brilliant and kind, a rare blend in the competitive world of academic research, colleagues said.

“I am absolutely devastated,” said Alan Garfinkel, a professor of integrative biology and physiology who worked with Klug to develop a computer-generated virtual heart. “You cannot ask for a nicer, gentler, sweeter and more supportive guy than William Klug.”

The wave of panic and adrenaline, slew of campus alerts and swarms of police were all too familiar for Jeremy Peschard. The 22-year-old geography major transferred to UCLA from UC Santa Barbara, near where a student’s rampage left six people dead and 14 injured in Isla Vista in 2014.

“It’s crazy to go through this again,” said Peschard, who said he experienced flashbacks of the attack as he hid inside a UCLA office. “It’s sad that it’s normalized at this point. It’s like I almost know the drill.”

Wednesday’s shooting took place inside the university’s engineering complex in a small office, according to Beck, who confirmed at a noon news conference that the shooter was one of the two dead men.

“The campus is now safe,” he said.

Based on the appearances of the deceased, police believed that the shooter was young enough to be a student, who then turned the gun on himself, a law enforcement source told the Los Angeles Times.

When police first discovered the two men who had been fatally shot, they feared they were the first victims of an active shooter, Koretz said.

The campus was locked down for about two hours, ending around 12:05 p.m. Classes were canceled after the shooting but will resume Thursday, the university said.

The shooting prompted a massive response from local and federal law enforcement. Police officers in riot gear ran across campus, guns and battering rams drawn, while students exited buildings with their hands above their heads.