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Students jump out of windows as gunman opens fire at University of North Carolina, killing staff member: Watch
Just after 1 pm on the day of the shooting, local law enforcement and UNC officials issued an alert about an “armed and dangerous person” near or on the campus
A tragic shooting at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill left a faculty member dead on Monday, August 28. A suspect named Tailei Qi is now in police custody. Tailei was arrested on Williams Circle in connection with the incident.
Just after 1 pm on the day of the shooting, locallaw enforcement and UNC officials issued an alert about an “armed and dangerous person” roaming near or on the campus. Police later revealed in a press conference that a staff member was murdered.
“I am devastated by today’s shooting in one of our campus buildings, a place where we conduct our important work of teaching, mentoring, and research every day,” UNC-Chapel Hill Chancellor Kevin M Guskiewicz said in a statement on Monday. “This shooting damages the trust and safety that we so often take for granted on our campus.”
“The students are certainly traumatised,” Kevin said, according to The Independent. “But I want to commend those who were inside the building ensuring everyone’s safety.”
Students seen jumping out of the windows
A chilling video released by WRAL shows students jumping out of the windows to escape the shooting. Describing the chaos, a student told Fox News, “I rushed outside assuming that would be the best location since they would most likely target larger crowds since I was in a large lecture of maybe 250–300 people. Once I went outside, I saw people running in the direction of the Genome Science building. I decided to take the corner and investigate to see what was going on.”
“One of my friends worked with him in the chemistry lab. However, he graduated this past year and was not [there]. Overall, it was extremely unexpected. I would always see stuff in the news but never expected to see things like this in person first-hand taking place,” the student added.
Who is the suspect, Tailei Qi?
Tailei attended University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He also claimed to have attended Louisiana State University, and obtained a master's in material science in 2021, according to the Daily Mail. He graduated from Wuhan University in 2015. Officials said that no charges have been brought against him yet.
Taipei’s LinkedIn bio says, “Tailei Qi is a graduate student at the department of applied physical sciences, UNC at Chapel Hill. He works on the optically trapped nanoparticle arrays and all kinds of their related fascinating phenomena. He has experience in 2D TMD photodetectors, optical tweezers”.
A UNC student who knew Tailei said the incident stunned him. “I would have never guessed that he would be the kind of person who could possibly be capable of this kind of thing," graduate student Aiden Scott told WRAL. "He was always very quiet."
"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,” the student added.
