William Scott Klug, a Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering professor at UCLA, was murdered by Mainak Sarkar, a student of his. Mainak killed Professor Scott in Scott’s office in UCLA with a 9mm pistol, then killed himself. The shooting shut down the entire school for a couple of hours before it was learned that it was a contained incident.
Who Was William Klug?
William Klug was first and foremost a father and husband. He leaves behind a wife, a daughter, and a son. He was beloved within the El Segundo, CA community where he lived.
A GoFundMe page, set up to assist his immediate family and help pay for college, explains that Will was also a little league coach.
As a professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, William also headed up a research group that concentrated on the study of Computational Biomechanics at UCLA.
According to the Klug Research Group’s website, they studied “problems at the interface of mechanics and biology. Using theoretical and computational techniques mostly from continuum mechanics and molecular biophysics, we aim to understand how the physical properties of biological structures and materials are involved in biological function from molecular and cellular scales upward.”
What Happened?
On June 1st, 2016, a 911 call from UCLA was made. The call reported multiple gun shots heard within .
We now know that’s when Mainak entered Professor Klug’s office within Engineering Building 4 and killed him with a 9 millimeter pistol. Moments later, Mainak turned the gun on himself and committed suicide.
Police would later recover a suicide note and gun at the scene, but not before the whole UCLA campus was shut down for two hours.
Why Did It Happen?
Professor Klug’s murder happened because Mainak Sarkar was a deranged individual.
That being said, if you’re looking for a motive, it’s believed that Mainak wrote a blog article earlier in the year about Professor Klug. In that blog post on LongDarkTunnelBlog, Mainak wrote that he believed Klug had stolen code from him and attributed it to another student.
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…
My name is Mainak Sarkar. I was this guy’s PhD student. We had personal differences. He cleverly stole all my code and gave it another student. He made me really sick.
Your enemy is your enemy. But your friend can do a lot more harm. Be careful about whom you trust.
Stay away from this sick guy.
