Shooter identified at Mainak Sarkar http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-mainak-sarkar-ucla-20160602-snap-story.html 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, 38, took his own life after killing William Klug, 39, in a small office in UCLA Engineering Building 4, sources confirmed.
this is crazy as a ucla alum it pains me to see something like this hit home. Its all super unfortunate as these places are institutes for learning and should be the last place any sort of violence is expected. I have a friend that had the professor before and he is just in shock still himself. just a terrible terrible day.
I'm actually happy more people weren't killed, especially since this guy had a list. And I've always been surprised this doesn't happen more often. Grad. school is an odd, grueling thing. The advisor/ advisee relationship is automatically stressful and hits all sorts of whatever parent-related baggage people have. Very sad in that this particular prof seemed to be a decent guy by all accounts, and had genuinely tried to help this student.
Right, I'm fine with people carrying if they're responsible... But I've encountered some that think they're going to be ****ing Dirty Harry... And I'm like... "what about a situation where...", - "nope, doesn't matter, I have cat-like reflexes!!!" lol, ok Harry. Anyway, I can't believe this **** is still happening.. especially to such a young professor just starting out, regardless if it was a grade situation/stolen code (supposedly)/mental health issue from the student, it doesn't really matter, this could have been and should have been handled differently. Hopefully in the future mental health is looked at sooner/better, because some of these premeditated things might be able to be avoided, and obviously I could be wrong w/ more details coming in, but the US is always lagging in certain areas. RIP PS I have nothing against the good guys/citizens having guns , but if some are just taking the joke handgun course and that's it, and then thinking they're a hero it's bull****... Some people don't respect guns and I've seen them get kicked out of the range I'm shooting at... so then in a real situation I'm probably going to be just as likely to get shot by the ****ty hero. Just look at the stats in the US of mass shootings vs accidental discharge deaths/injuries.... People need more training.
Very true, I really think certain situations could/should be handled better, some of this stress is also created because some professors live in academia world and forget that the real world is a place too. I'm not saying a free pass to a degree or free As, but professors could also do a better job recognizing the signs of problems, unfortunately the better professors that treat students like people aren't usually at the beginning of a program and the early profs are probably over saturated with students. I'm also not talking about this situation, but situations I've seen first hand (obviously not horrific like this, thankfully).
Yeah, probably not relevant, as you say, to this tragic case, but I agree with you that professors aren't always very good at recognizing signs of trouble. It's a mistake that we train people in one narrow field (like me in physics) and then expect them to be good or even adequate mentors and (essentially) therapists in many cases.
A lot of these profs take advantage of their students. They especially like getting foreign ones since those guys don't have papers and are basically at the profs mercy. I don't know what it was in this case. Looks like this guy just went postal killing his GF? and Professor.
well if it was true that the professor stole his computer codes and gave it to someone else then it will be the professors fault.
bullschit. What a stupid response from you. "stealing code" does not mean that somebody has license to kill.
Let's say this is "true".. So it's now also the professor's fault that he killed the girl too?? Regardless if the professor was in the wrong, the guy who killed 2 people and himself was already unbalanced. This situation could have been handled a lot different, and on top of that... the student was 38 not some emotional undergrad. I also just read he wanted to kill another professor, what did that prof do? I mean this guy was a former student not even enrolled... To me it sounds like he had mental health problems that unfortunately were not addressed. Nobody deserves to die over computer code, if your code was that stellar, go to the ****ing courts and do it correctly.
A foreign student must either show residency or must hold a student visa. Without any more details, you indeed do not know much about this incident.
I didn't blame anyone I was simply commenting on what I have seen in the academic world based on B-Bob's comment. The Academic world is brutal. I don't know about this specific situation, and I didn't really comment on this specific situation.
My first boss had developed a beef with his advisor in a doctoral program in Philosophy of Math. Before defending his dissertation, he threw a drink in his advisor's face and quit the pursuit. He later became an alcoholic anyway.
