UCLA students plan institute on gun violence dedicated to shooting victim William Klug

LOS ANGELES >> The fatal shooting of a UCLA professor by a former student, who then tued the gun on himself, led to an uprecedented, hours-long lockdown of the entire Westwood campus on June 1, leaving students and faculty barricaded in their classrooms while also frightening parents across Southe Califoia.

Now, representatives from the student govement on campus, with help from local legislators and the chancellor of UCLA, are calling for more research into the causes of increasing gun violence at American schools.

The UCLA Undergraduate Students Association (USAC) on Friday aounced plans to create the “UCLA Institute on Campus Violence,” a research center that would “utilize the university’s research and public service capacity to study strategies to combat campus violence.”

The students said they would dedicate the center to William Klug, the 39-year-old professor who was killed in the engineering department building. Mainak Sarkar, a former UCLA student, shot Klug in his office, then himself, after driving from his home in Miesota all the way to the campus.

Chancellor Gene Block also said on Friday that he would create a campus-wide task force in response to the shooting. The task force would create an active-shooter training program for student, faculty and staff leaders, as well as assess the university’s response to the shooting.

A USAC press release said the university will revamp its alert system that sends text and email messages to students and faculty when emergencies happen.

The Los Angeles City Council also pledged $5 million to study and implement ways to increase security at college campuses in the region.

USAC Vice President Rafael Sands decried the lack of progress on stopping gun violence from killing elementary to college-age students. He noted that four years have passed since 26 people, including 20 children, were killed in the shooting in Newtown, Coecticut at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

“Sandy Hook seems like it happened yesterday, but it didn’t. It was years ago,” he said. “The people graduating today just began at this school when Sandy Hook happened.”

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