Grad student charged with 1st-degree murder in shooting of professor at UNC-Chapel Hill

The graduate student charged with fatally shooting a professor in a UNC-Chapel Hill laboratory building Monday will make his first court appearance on the murder charge Tuesday afternoon.

Tailei Qi is accused of killing Zijie Yan, a professor in the Department of Applied Physical Sciences, according to arrest warrants. The two worked on the same research team.

Qi, 34, has been charged with first-degree murder and possessing a firearm — a 9mm handgun — on educational property. He will make his first appearance in court at 2 p.m. Tuesday, according to Orange County District Attorney Jeff Neiman.

Police said they do not yet know a possible motive for the shooting, which prompted a three-hour lockdown and rattled the campus one week into the new school year. No other injuries were reported.

Students described a confusing and terrifying afternoon as they huddled in bathrooms and barricaded themselves in buildings, awaiting more information about the shooting at Caudill Laboratories in the central part of the campus.

“To be honest, I’m feeling pretty terrified right now, but I feel safe in the location I’m in and am thankfully with friends,” said Jackie Ruiz, a master’s student, who was walking on the main campus quad when she got the first Alert Carolina message shortly after 1 p.m. She ran into a nearby building and was taking shelter in a closet with other students, she said.

The university issued an “all clear” message at 4:14 p.m. A large bullet hole that shattered a window could be seen to the right of Caudill Laboratories’ north entrance Monday.

Chapel Hill-Carrboro Schools also were locked down in the afternoon — the first day of school — until the all-clear was given.

Classes at the university were canceled Monday afternoon through Tuesday. Caudill Laboratories will remain closed as evidence is collected and processed, UNC Police Chief Brian James said.

“This loss is devastating, and the shooting damages the trust and safety that we so often take for granted in our campus community,” Chancellor Kevin Guskiewicz said at Monday’s news conference. “We will work to rebuild that sense of trust and safety within our community, and our hearts are with the family of our fellow faculty member, those who are personally connected to the victim and those traumatized by this senseless act of violence.”

What we know about the professor

Yan left Clarkson University in upstate New York in 2019 to join UNC-Chapel Hill faculty. He ran a lab in the Department of Applied Physical Sciences with two undergraduate students, one research assistant and three PhD students, including Qi.

UNC promoted Yan’s research on “optical tweezers” earlier this month on social media.

Yan was scheduled to teach an undergraduate engineering course this fall on fundamental and applied materials science, according to a UNC course catalog.

“Our research goal is to transcend the boundary between photonics and materials science by developing new techniques to control light-matter interactions at the nanometer scale,” his website states.

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute’s materials science and engineering community posted a Facebook tribute to Yan, who had studied there.

”He is remembered fondly by many of us that met him in the classroom, lab, or in the hallway of MRC,” it stated. “Among other things, he distinguished himself with publishing 17 journal articles in the course of his PhD study and continued his successful career as a postdoc at the University of Chicago, and later as a faculty at the Clarkson University and recently at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill.”

Yan was from Jingmen in central China and received his undergraduate and master’s degrees at Huazhong University of Science and Technology, according to a Watertown Daily Times article.

Yan had two young children, according to court documents.

What we know about the suspect

Qi joined the Department of Applied Physical Sciences at UNC-Chapel Hill in 2022, after finishing a master’s degree at Louisiana State University. Before that, he completed an undergraduate degree in physics from Wuhan University in China, according to his lab profile.

He was one of three Ph.D. students in the Yan Research group, run by assistant professor Zijie Yan, according to its website. The group studies photonics and material sciences. Qi regularly wrote scientific papers, the most recent of which was published in Advanced Optical Materials on July 30.

On Twitter, Qi posted about his experience as a graduate student — sometimes positively and sometimes voicing frustrations.

In one post, he described himself as “very enthusiastic talking about research” and wrote he would “like to make some new friends”. He also described working 60 to 80 hour weeks in the lab.

In an Aug. 18, 2022, Tweet, he appeared to describe a conflict within in his lab. “Just have a talk with my PI and get his promise. … He should have more experience to handle with these girls and tattletales,” Qi wrote.

A PI, or principal investigator, is often the leader of a research group whom PhD students report to.

Two months earlier he tweeted: “Just feel my privacy was insulted. … I was showing the boss I am working instead of interests, devaluing the meaning of my work,” he wrote. “That’s so disgusting. Self-respect block me from working.”

Timeline of UNC shooting

UNC Police received a 911 call reporting shots fired inside Caudill Labs on South Road at 1:02 p.m.

The university sounded campus alarms and issued an Alert Carolina message about an “armed and dangerous person on or near campus” at 1:03 p.m.

When police arrived at the labs, they found the faculty member who had been shot, James said.

People on campus were urged to shelter in place, with many huddling in bathrooms and barricading themselves in buildings throughout the afternoon.

An update at 2:24 p.m. said the campus remained on lockdown as the “active assailant situation” continued.

At 2:35 p.m. UNC Police released a photo of a “person of interest” they said was wanted in the investigation.

The suspect was taken into custody around 2:38 p.m. off campus, the university said. WRAL reported the suspect was arrested on Williams Circle, located in a neighborhood just under 2 miles from the scene of the shooting.

Police have not yet found a weapon, James said during a news conference Monday evening at the Carolina Inn.

On campus, more than a dozen FBI agents entered Caudill Laboratories around 5:30 p.m. Officers patrolled the edges of the building, searching bushes and storm drains with flashlights and a K-9 dog.

What we know about the shooting at UNC-Chapel Hill after arrest of suspect

Students scrambled to safety

Senior Anna Connors dropped her lunch and dashed into a nearby building when she saw people on campus start running. Because the building has big windows, she piled into an interior-facing lecture hall with about 20 other students. Together, the students barricaded the door with bookcases, and Connors wedged herself under a table to hide.

“At first, a lot of people were crying, calling loved ones, but now it’s quiet and everyone is just waiting to see what happens next,” Connors, a former News & Observer intern, said Monday afternoon.

“I think the hardest part is everyone hears different things, and media spreads so fast these days, you just don’t know if what you’re hearing is true,” she said. “So you have to be patient and trust that UNC will let us know when things are OK.”

Luke Toscano, 18, had accompanied his roommate to campus when they received a text from the school saying there was an armed shooter. Toscano, his roommate and five other students locked themselves in a bathroom.

”We’ve been quiet in here and are a little more relaxed now,” Toscano said. “I haven’t received any training for this kind of circumstance.”

Monday marked the start of the second week of classes for the fall semester. About 30,000 students attend UNC.

Students seeking support can contact the university’s Dean of Students team or Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS). For urgent concerns, students should call 919-966-3658 to access the emergency protocol line. Faculty and staff should reach out to the Employee Assistance Program.

UNC announced that a hotline would be available at 8 a.m. Tuesday for “concerned parents, loved ones and community members who have questions. The hotline can be reached at 919-918-1999.

‘Feeling pretty terrified,’ UNC students and faculty wait out lockdown after shooting

Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools in secure mode

Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools announced an “all-clear” for its students at 3:40 p.m., after putting all schools in “secure mode” earlier in the afternoon.

Elementary and middle school students were beginning to be dismissed. High school dismissal began at 4 p.m. Bus riders “may experience a significant delay” getting home, the district said. All after-school activities were canceled.

In a statement late Monday, Chapel Hill Mayor Pam Hemminger thanked first responders in town and outside the area who came together to respond to the shooting.

“We are heartbroken for the UNC students, faculty, and staff whose sense of safety on their beautiful campus was shattered by the day’s events and for those children, teachers, and staff who had to lock down on their first day back to our local schools,” Hemminger said in a statement.

“We know that this will be a difficult time and encourage you to reach out to someone if you need any emotional or mental help,” she wrote.

Staff writer Martha Quillin contributed to this report.