Shooting at UNC-Chapel Hill Leaves One Faculty Member Dead

  • By Matt Jones
  • August 29, 2023

A shooting at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill left one faculty member dead and triggered a campus-wide lockdown on Monday afternoon, according to national news. The shooting took place in a university science building, and the suspected shooter was taken into custody about 90 minutes after the first reports of gunfire.

The victim has yet to be publicly named, according to AP News. CNN reports that the suspect has been identified as doctoral student Tailei Qi and faces charges of first-degree murder and having a gun on education property.

“To actually have the suspect in custody gives us an opportunity to figure out the why, and even the how, and also helps us to uncover a motive and really just why this happened today. Why today, why at all?” said UNC Police Chief Brian James. “And we want to learn from this incident and we will certainly work to do our best to ensure that this never happens again on the UNC campus.”

According to James, UNC Police received a shots-fired call from Caudill Labs a little after 1 p.m. local time. Within two minutes, the university instituted a lockdown via emergency alert and sirens around campus. Officers arrived at the lab to find a faculty member who had been fatally shot, and according to “witness information” via CNN, the suspect was taken into custody at about 2:30 p.m.

Local TV news station WRAL reports that the suspect was apprehended in a residential neighborhood near campus, although James declined to elaborate during the press conference. The campus lockdown was lifted at about 4:15 p.m.

AP News reports that authorities are still working to uncover the weapon and the motive in the shooting.

About the Author

Matt Jones is senior editor of Spaces4Learning and Campus Security and Life Safety. He can be reached at [email protected]

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