Law enforcement in Orange County, North Carolina, arrested Tailei Qi, a graduate student at University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, and charged him with first-degree murder Tuesday after a shooting that left a faculty member dead on the university’s campus on Monday.
Law enforcement respond to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill campus in Chapel Hill, ... [+]
The Orange County Sheriff’s Department daily booking report shows Qi is in custody and charged with first-degree murder, but no authorities have officially confirmed his arrest was made in connection with the shooting.
News organizations including CNN have cited anonymous sources who report that Qi is a suspect in the shooting.
UNC Police had said they had apprehended a suspect around 2:30 p.m. Monday without naming the suspect, but they had posted Qi’s photo earlier on Monday, listing him as a person of interest and advising residents to stay away from him if they see him.
A now-deleted webpage on UNC’s online directory showed that Qi was a graduate student studying applied physical sciences.
Forbes has reached out to UNC’s media relations department for confirmation (Orange County Sheriff’s Department and UNC Police told Forbes the university was the only source that could answer questions on the matter).
UNC police learned about gunfire in Caudill Laboratories on the university’s campus at 1:02 p.m. Monday, according to the statement by Chancellor Kevin M. Guskiewicz. Police immediately issued a shelter-in-place order, informing the public that an “armed” and “dangerous” suspect was reported on campus. Police say they arrested the suspect around 2:30 p.m. Later that afternoon, a statement from Guskiewicz and the university said that a faculty member had been killed in the shooting. It did not name the faculty member.
In recent months, Qi has made a series of posts on X, formerly known as Twitter, expressing anger and frustration with his studies, his classmates and his “PI,” or principal investigator, a faculty member assigned to assist students with research.
UNC Shooting: Faculty Member Killed On Campus, Suspect In Custody (Forbes)
UNC Lifts Lockdown After ‘Armed And Dangerous’ Person Reported On Campus (Forbes)