An armed man who was shot dead by a police officer on Tuesday at the University of California at Berkeley’s business school was an undergraduate student, a campus spokesman said on Wednesday.
The 32-year-old student, Christopher Nathen Elliot Travis, was reported to the police on Tuesday afternoon when he was seen with a gun in an elevator at the Haas School of Business, officials said. When police officers found him moments later in a nearby computer laboratory, he pointed the gun at them and was shot by a single police officer, the police said. Mr. Travis died later at a local hospital, said the spokesman, Dan Mogulof.
The shooting, which officials said was the first on Berkeley’s campus since the 1980s, does not appear to be connected to a large student protest that was being held on a different part of the campus at the same time. Mr. Travis was in his first semester taking business courses at Berkeley, Mr. Mogulof said.
Three people who were in or near the computer lab said in interviews soon after the shooting that they heard the police yelling at the suspect to drop his weapon before shooting five to 10 times. The witnesses said some students and staff members dropped to the ground upon hearing the gunshots, while others tried to run away.
A Web page apparently written by Mr. Travis to promote himself as a business consultant discussed two suicide attempts by him. The information on the page matches the name and description of Mr. Travis given by campus officials, but officials have not verified that it was written by him. The page was taken down on Wednesday.
“My name is Chris Travis. I tried to kill myself when I was 5. ... I took 219 sleeping pills one day when I was 23,” the Web site originally said. It said that the author wanted to get an internship at the United Nations and pursue a career in international business. “I want to learn more and do more to make this world better,” the Web site said.
