UNC student shoots dead faculty member, allegedly in retaliation

(ECNS) -- A faculty member was shot and killed and a suspect was arrested after an on-campus shooting at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill on Monday, school officials have confirmed.

The latest reports indicate that Qi Tailei, a second-year Chinese doctoral student in the Applied Physics Department, allegedly opened fire in retaliation against a professor. 

Videos from the scene depicted dozens of police officers entering the campus, evacuating faculty members and students from buildings.

UNC confirmed that the campus remains under lockdown due to the ongoing attack.

Qi has been taken into custody and is being closely guarded by at least two police officers. 

Qi has been working as a research assistant at the university since 2022. According to his LinkedIn profile, he received his undergraduate degree at Wuhan University from 2010 to 2015, followed by a master's degree from Louisiana State University from 2019 to 2021.

His LinkedIn profile also revealed that he worked as a researcher at the Suzhou Institute of Advanced Materials from 2015 to 2017 and as an assistant researcher at the Southern University of Science and Technology from 2017 to 2019 in China.

Last month, Qi shared a paper on optical binding on his LinkedIn profile, which he co-authored with two others.

He often shared his love for food on Twitter and posted about his interests in nanoparticle synthesis, optical tweezers and machine learning.

Considering his background, it appears that Qi was not someone with a violent history. His classmates find it difficult to believe that he would be involved in such a tragic incident.

Ayden Scott, a UNC graduate student and former classmate of Qi, told local media that he had never expected that Qi would have done something so violent.

“Every single time he would talk to me, he seemed very nice. When I saw his face in the reports online, I was beyond shocked,” Scott was cited as saying.

North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper said earlier on Monday that he had "pledged all state resources needed" to protect the university campus.