UNC-Chapel Hill faculty member shot dead in campus lab

STORY: A faculty member at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill was shot dead on campus on Monday. And campus police say a suspect is in custody. According to UNC Chapel Hill Chief of Police Brian James, officers received reports of shots being fired just after 1pm at the campus chemistry laboratory. “An emergency Alert Carolina was issued and the emergency siren sounded at 1:04 p.m. notifying campus of the emergency and issuing a lockdown. Upon arrival at Caudill Labs police discovered one individual, a faculty member, had been shot. Unfortunately, as we have reported, this person is deceased.” James said there were no other injuries reported from the incident. And that witness information at the scene led police to identify and find the suspect an hour or so later. University chancellor Kevin Guskiewicz cancelled all classes and campus events for the rest of Monday and Tuesday. “This loss is devastating, and the shooting damages the trust and safety that we so often take for granted in our campus community." The authorities did not immediately reveal the identities of the deceased faculty member and the suspect. Some students said many were slow to grasp the severity of the situation after receiving the campus alert. “We thought it was like maybe a drill or something. It took us a while to realize how serious it was and you could feel in the room the more and more we realized how real it was, we went from sitting there on our social media to barricading doors.” “We just went through the lecture, like normal for a little bit and then we kind of realized it was a pretty serious situation. So I think we locked the doors pretty quickly and we're just kind of like hunkering down and just like sitting in there waiting for more information.” Chapel Hill has about 32,000 students, along with around 4,100 faculty and 9,000 staff members. After the shooting, North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper said on social media, he had “pledged all state resources needed” to protect the university campus.