[Updated (12/3/2016, 1:40 p.m.) to include further details about the suspect.]
A graduate student has been arrested for allegedly stabbing and killing a psychology professor at the University of Southern California, the Los Angeles Times reports. The professor, Bosco Tjan, was stabbed multiple times in the campus’s Seeley G. Mudd building on Friday afternoon. Mr. Tjan was a co-director of the Dornsife Cognitive Neuroimaging Center. He joined the USC faculty in 2001.
In a message to the campus, President C.L. Max Nikias said, “With tremendous sadness, I write to share the news that Professor Bosco Tjan was tragically killed this afternoon.” He said the university’s public-safety officers had responded quickly and “apprehended the suspect on the scene.” He encouraged students to seek counseling through Student Counseling Services or other campus services.
The stabbing at USC comes less than a week after an attack by a knife-wielding student at Ohio State University in which 11 people were injured. The student was killed at the scene.
In July 2014 a USC graduate student from China, Xinran Ji, was bludgeoned to death in what appeared to be a racially motivated robbery. One woman has been convicted of that crime, and three men await trial. In 2012 two Chinese students were fatally shot within a mile of the campus. Two men were convicted of murder for that killing and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
A detective with the Los Angeles Police Department said the assault on Friday was most likely the result of a personal dispute. “We want to make clear this was not a random act,” Detective Meghan Aguilar told the newspaper. “This victim was targeted by the suspect.”
The suspect has been identified as Jonathan David Brown, of Los Angeles, a 28-year-old brain- and cognitive-science student, according to the Times. Mr. Tjan led a lab of six students who studied vision loss.
Mr. Tjan started his career at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, where he got his Ph.D. in 1997, according to the Star Tribune.
