Computer Code At Center of UCLA Murder-Suicide

02 Jun, 2016

The gunman who shot and killed a UCLA professor Wednesday has been identified as Mainak Sarkar, a former doctoral student who had accused the victim of stealing his computer code and giving it to someone else, according to Los Angeles police.

Sarkar took his own life after killing William Klug, 39, in a small office in UCLA Engineering Building 4, sources confirmed. The Los Angeles County coroner’s office on Thursday did not identify the shooter, although it did confirm the victim’s identity Thursday morning.

Klug was an associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering and had been the target of Sarkar’s anger on social media for months. On March 10, Sarkar called the professor a “very sick person” who should not be trusted.

“William Klug, UCLA professor is not the kind of person when you think of a professor. He is a very sick person. I urge every new student coming to UCLA to stay away from this guy,” Sarkar wrote. “He made me really sick. Your enemy is my enemy. But your friend can do a lot more harm. Be careful about whom you trust.”

A source called the gunman’s accusations “absolutely untrue.”

“The idea that somebody took his ideas is absolutely psychotic,” the university source said.

Klug, who was described by friends as a kind and caring man, bent over backward to help Sarkar finish his dissertation and graduate even though the quality of his work was not stellar, the source added.

“Bill was extremely generous to this student, who was a subpar student,” the source said. “He helped him out and interceded for him academically.”

In his doctoral dissertation, submitted in 2013, Sarkar expressed gratitude to Klug for his help and support.

A syllabus from 2010 lists Sarkar as one of two teaching assistants in a mechanical and aerospace engineering course, MAE: 101: Statics and Strength of Materials. Sarkar was listed in the 2014 doctoral commencement booklet with Klug as his advisor.

“Thank you for being my mentor,” he wrote in the acknowledgements.

Before enrolling at UCLA, Sarkar earned a master’s degree at Stanford University following an undergraduate degree in aerospace engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology in Kharagpur, according to his LinkedIn page. In the U.S., he also had a stint as a research assistant at the University of Texas and worked as a software developer.

After UCLA, Sarkar worked remotely as an engineering analyst for an Ohio-based rubber company, Endurica LLC. Will Mars, the company’s president, confirmed to The Times that Sarkar worked for Endurica until August 2014. He declined to provide more details.

Thousands of students and UCLA staff on Wednesday found themselves racing to barricade classroom doors with desks, projectors and anything else they could find after cellphones buzzed across campus with alerts of a possible shooting.

By 12:05 p.m., police confirmed that two men had been killed in an engineering building.

The campus was declared safe, and UCLA officials lifted a lockdown that had canceled classes for the day.

All classes, except those in engineering, were to resume Thursday, the university said. Engineering classes will resume once authorities have completed their investigation, which could be as early as Friday.

The university has offered counseling services to students, faculty and staff.

“Our UCLA family has indeed been shaken, but we will rely upon the strong bonds of our community and our faith in one another as we begin the process of healing,” UCLA Chancellor Gene Block said.

Los Angeles Times

Image Boston Globe

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