The vehicle a man drove from Minnesota to Los Angeles, where he gunned down his former professor at UCLA, has been found a few miles from the school, two days after the murder-suicide, police said. Johnson said that Hasti’s father and sister also lived at the Brooklyn Park home but that they spent less time there after Hasti’s mother, Colleen, died in 2011.
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Neiman says the bomb squad plans to sweep the auto as a precaution to make sure there are no explosives inside before other officers examine the vehicle further.
“He was certainly prepared to engage multiple victims”, Beck said during a news conference.
Police suspect Sarkar drove in the vehicle from Minnesota to L.A., where he shot and killed William Klug, a UCLA professor, in his campus office on Wednesday before committing suicide, LAPD Chief Charlie Beck said.
Sarkar apparently believed Klug had stolen some of his work while he was a doctoral student at UCLA.
Her 10-year-old son attends a school near campus that was on lockdown Wednesday.
A auto matching the description and licence plate of UCLA gunman Mainak Sarkar’s vehicle was found Friday in Culver City, authorities said.
Police only made a decision to check on Hasti after finding a note at the Los Angeles crime scene written by Sarkar, 38, asking authorities to check on his cat at his home in St. Paul.
“My sister, Ashley Hasti, was the smartest, coolest, and funniest person I knew”.
Jason McGrath, an associate professor who taught two of Ashley’s undergraduate classes, said: “She was one of the best students of her time”, he said. “She was way ahead of her time”, Fitzgibbons said of his niece, who had studied overseas in Taiwan and China during high school before heading to Scripps College in California for pre-med studies.
Police searched Sarkar’s residence there and found a protective vest, ammunition, some medications and computers, Hayes said. I will miss him every day for the rest of my life.
“Two different notes. Two different locations”, Beck said.
Beck said investigators are aware of Sarkar’s online postings, but they did not include any threats that might have triggered a UCLA or police investigation.
In a statement from Klug’s wife, Mary Elise Richter Klug, released by UCLA, she said: “During this extremely hard time for our family, we are grateful for the tremendous outpouring of support”.
Sarkar is believed to have forced his way into Hasti’s home through a window, which was found broken, Brooklyn Park police said in a statement. Police believe Sarkar used cash to purchase gasoline along the way, and possibly slept in the auto to avoid detection.
Officials in Hennepin County, in the mid-western state of Minnesota, said Ms Hasti and Sarkar were married on June 14, 2011. “Knowing that so many others share our family’s sorrow has provided a measure of comfort”, she said. “At this time, we ask the media to please respect our family’s privacy in and around our home, school and local community during the days and weeks ahead, especially for the sake of my children”.
“We believe at this point that she was deceased prior to the UCLA incident”, he said.
As people gathered for a vigil at UCLA on Friday afternoon, an LAPD bomb squad arrived on scene at Bledsoe Avenue and Washington Place in Culver City.
Sarkar graduated from UCLA in 2015 with a Ph.D.in mechanical engineering.
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UCLA’s engineering building is in the middle of a densely populated part of Los Angeles.
