Bob Collins
Courtesy of the Los Angeles Times, here’s a little more on Mainak Sarkar, the Minnesota man who shot and killed a UCLA engineering professor yesterday. Authorities suspect he also killed a woman at a Brooklyn Park home.
Sarkar, the Times says, accused the professor of stealing some computer code.
“William Klug, UCLA professor is not the kind of person when you think of a professor,” Sarkar wrote. “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.”
KNX Radio said that was part of a blog post found by UCLA students after the killing yesterday. The blog, since deleted, was called Long Dark Tunnel.
Also according to the Times:
** Sarkar had driven from Minnesota to Los Angeles with two semiautomatic handguns, and investigators were still searching for the vehicle, which the chief described as a gray Nissan Sentra with Minnesota license plates 720KTW. Beck said police don’t expect the vehicle to be “any significant danger,” but officials ask anyone who sees it to call police.
** 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.”
** 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.
KTLA said Sarkar left a note behind, which told authorities to go check on his cat at his Minnesota residence.
The Star Tribune says St. Paul police searched an apartment on Agate Street. There, authorities found what the Los Angeles police chief is calling a “kill list” with the name of a woman in Brooklyn Park who was found dead. The relationship between Sarkar and the woman remains unclear at this time, KNX said.
“We did a thorough investigation of Sartar’s residence in Minnesota and found extra ammunition,” L.A. police chief Charlie Beck said, according to the Los Angeles Daily News. “A note named individuals. It was a kill list, and Professor Klug’s name was on that list and another professor.”
The other professor has been found unharmed.
