The College Fix

Emerging news on the Wednesday shooting at UCLA is taking serious twists and turns — but talk of motive has quickly gone from a possible grade dispute to claims of mental illness and property right disputes.

At first, a fight over grades was cited by some as the possible motive for why 38-year-old UCLA PhD student Mainak Sarkar fatally shot his mechanical engineering professor before killing himself.

Headlines blared “UCLA Student Shot Professor Over Grades Before Killing Himself, Say Police” and “UCLA student reportedly gunned down professor over grade.”

But on Thursday, police said there was more to the story, that the shooter had a “kill list” and was likely responsible for the death of a Minnesota woman. “We believe at this point she was deceased prior to the UCLA shooting,” Deputy Police Chief Mark Bruley told reporters.

And LAPD Police Chief Charlie Beck said during an interview on KTLA that “the list identified other potential targets — including at least one other UCLA professor who was not harmed during Wednesday’s incident,” Fox News reports

Beck also told KTLA: “Everybody tries to look for a reason for this. Well, first of all, there is no good reason for this. This is a mental issue, mental derangement, but it was tied to a dispute over intellectual property.”

Prof. William Klug was reportedly shot because Sarkar believed the professor stole computer code from him.

In a blog post on the Long Dark Tunnel that has since been deleted, Sarkar allegedly wrote: “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 to another student. He made me really sick.”

Sarkar, who was born in India, was listed on UCLA’s website as part of the Klug Research Group, a team of six post-doctoral and PhD students researching engineering.

As to the relationship between Sarkar and the dead woman, who lived in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, “detectives were looking into her history to see if there had been any 911 calls placed from her home, but Brooklyn Park Police Deputy Chief Mark Bruley said there hadn’t been any in the ‘recent past,'” NBC news reports. Authorities have not officially identified her.

The Daily Mail identified the woman as Ashley Hasti, a University of Minnesota Medical School student.

Meanwhile, UCLA is moving forward with finals despite the tragedy.

“Our hearts are heavy this evening as our campus family mourns the sudden and tragic deaths of two people on our campus earlier today. The thoughts and prayers of our entire UCLA family are with the victims’ families and the students, faculty and staff of UCLA Engineering,” Chancellor Gene Block announced in an email.

Campus officials added “classes will resume today except for those in the Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science. This is the final week of instruction for the academic year, and it’s expected that finals and commencements will occur as scheduled.”

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