CHAPEL HILL, N.C. (WNCN) — As UNC-Chapel Hill gave an all-clear following an active, armed person on campus for hours Monday afternoon, officials told everyone to stay away from Caudill Labs, where deadly gunshots were fired around 1 p.m.
UNC officials said a faculty member was shot and killed “at Caudill Laboratories on the University of North Carolina campus.”
Video obtained by CBS 17 shows several armed law enforcement officers inside Caudill Labs during the lockdown earlier Monday afternoon. The video, courtesy of Brendan Lynch, shows a hall within Caudill Labs with officers walking with guns raised and wearing bullet protective vests.
CBS 17 video also shows a bullet hole in a window at the Caudell Labs building — and UNC students holding their arms above their heads while exiting the building.
Earlier, a massive presence of law enforcement and EMS vehicles lined the road outside the Caudell Labs Building, Genome Sciences Building and South Road was largely blocked off. UNC students and faculty barricaded themselves in dorm rooms, offices and classrooms for hours
After the all-clear around 4:15 p.m. Monday. Around 5 p.m., UNC officials said the suspect was taken into custody around 2:38 p.m.
Police released a photo of the person of interest on or near UNC-Chapel Hill’s campus. According to the UNC website, the image matches an ID photo for a student named Tailei Qi.
Tailei Qi was a member of the Yan Research Group, which is linked to Caudill Labs, according to UNC records.
The school’s first alert was sent out just after 1 p.m. At 1:50 p.m., officials posted on X that the shelter-in-place order remained in effect and that it was “an ongoing situation.” About 40 minutes later, the school added a post saying: “Remain sheltered in place. This is an ongoing situation. Suspect at large.”
About two hours after the first alert went out, officers were still arriving in droves, with about 50 police vehicles at the scene and multiple helicopters circling over the school.
One officer admonished two people who tried to exit the student center, yelling “Inside, now!” About 10 minutes later, law enforcement escorted a group of students out of one of the science buildings, with everyone walking in an orderly line with their hands up.
Shortly before 4 p.m., students and faculty started emerging from campus buildings, with the lockdown over.
The report of the shooting and subsequent lockdown paralyzed campus and parts of the surrounding town of Chapel Hill a week after classes began at the state’s flagship public university. The university has approximately 20,000 undergraduate students and 12,000 graduate students.
The Associated Press contributed to this report
