A graduate student with a history of dark social media posts was taken into custody as a suspect.
A graduate student allegedly shot and killed a faculty member at UNC-Chapel Hill Monday afternoon, according to university officials and police, locking down the campus for several hours.
The suspect, Tailei Qi, a graduate student in applied physical sciences, was taken into custody Monday afternoon. Formal charges are pending, police said at a press conference Monday evening.
University officials and police did not identify the deceased faculty member as they worked to notify their family.
Police have not pinpointed a motive, but Qi’s Twitter posts expressed frustration, stress and depression.
This year and last, he made a series of vague posts about conflict with other students and his “PI” or principal investigator, usually a faculty member assigned by the university to work with students on research projects.
It is not clear whether that PI is the faculty member who was killed.
“Just feel my privacy was insulted,” Qi wrote in a Twitter post on July 18 2022. “When I work, I will think I was showing the boss I am working instead of interests, devaluing the meaning of my work.
That’s so disgusting. Self-respect block me from working. Then it takes pains to convince myself what I do is just because I like.”