University of Iowa shooting
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| University of Iowa shooting | |
| Location | Iowa City, Iowa, U.S.A |
|---|---|
| Date | Friday, November 1, 1991 (EST) |
| Attack type | School shooting, murder-suicide |
| Weapon(s) | .38-caliber revolver |
| Deaths | 5 |
| Injured | 1 |
| Perpetrator | Gang Lu |
The University of Iowa shooting was a school shooting that occurred at theUniversity of Iowa in Iowa City, Iowa on November 1, 1991. The gunman, 28-year-old Gang Lu, had killed four faculty members and one student. He later seriously wounded another student before he committed suicide.
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[edit] Perpetrator and motives
The perpetrator of the shooting was 28-year-old Gang Lu (family name Lu; Chinese: 卢刚 Lú Gāng), a Chinese-American and former graduate student at the University of Iowa. Lu had received his doctoral degree from the university in May 1990.
In the months prior to the shooting, he wrote five letters explaining the reasons for his planned actions. According to university officials, four of the letters were in English and were intended to be mailed to news organizations. One letter was written in Chinese. The letters have never been released to the public. Lu was infuriated because his doctoral degree did not receive the prestigious D.C. Spriestersbach Dissertation Prize, which included a monetary award of $2,500. Winning the prize would have been easier for Lu to have been hired in a highly competitive field.
[edit] The shooting
On Friday, November 1, 1991, former student Gang Lu entered the University of Iowa campus armed with a .38-caliber revolver. The shooting began in Van Allen Hall, where the physics and astronomy department was located. Lu killed were Christoph K. Goertz, Dwight R. Nicholson, Robert Alan Smith, and Linhua Shan inside Van Allen Hall. Goertz, Nicholson, and Smith were all faculty in physics and astronomy. Linhua Shan, another Chinese physics student, was the winner of the D.C. Spriestersbach Dissertation Prize.
Lu then left Van Allen Hall and entered Jessup Hall, the main administration building. Lu asked to see T. Anne Cleary, the assistant vice president for academic affairs. Lu shot Cleary, who died the following day. He later shot Miya Rodolfo-Sioson, a temporary student employee, in the mouth; the bullet damaged her spinal cord and left her paralyzed from the neck down.[1] Lu then committed suicide by a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head, as police had arrived at the campus.
[edit] Popular culture
Writer Jo Ann Beard later wrote an acclaimed personal essay based in part on the killings. The essay, called "The Fourth State of Matter," was originally published in The New Yorker, appeared in the 1997 edition of Best American Essays, and was later included in her collection of personal essays, The Boys of My Youth. Beard worked as an editor for a physics journal at the university and was a colleague of the victims, working closely with several of them.
Based on Gang Lu's story, Chinese director Chen Shi-zheng made a feature film, Dark Matter, starring Liu Ye and Meryl Streep. The film won the Alfred P. Sloan Prize at the Sundance Film Festival in 2007.[2]
[edit] References
- ^ http://www.berkeleydailyplanet.com/issue/2008-12-11/article/31784?headline=Miya-Rodolfo-Sioson-1968-2008
- ^ Overbye, "A Tale of Power and Intrigue in the Lab, Based on Real Life."
[edit] External links
- Beard, Jo Ann (1997). "The Fourth State of Matter". The Boys of My Youth. http://www.courses.vcu.edu/ENG101-pas/fourthstate.htm. Retrieved on 2007-04-01.
- Eckhardt, Megan L. (November 1, 2001). "10 years later, U. Iowa remembers fatal day". The Daily Iowan. http://www.uwire.com/content/topnews110101001.html. Retrieved on 2007-04-01.
- Efrati, Amir (November 1, 2002). "Recalling a snowy, blustery November day". The Daily Iowan (dailyiowan.com). http://media.www.dailyiowan.com/media/storage/paper599/news/2002/11/01/Metro/Recalling.A.Snowy.Blustery.November.Day-312815.shtml. Retrieved on 2007-04-01.
- Grabbe, Crockett (November 2, 1999). "A Tree of Legacies: The UI Murders 5 Years Later". crockett-grabbe@uiowa.edu. http://www.physics.uiowa.edu/~cgrabbe/writing/uimurds.html. Retrieved on 2006-07-25.
- Marriott, Michel (November 3, 1991). "Gunman in Iowa Wrote of Plans In Five Letters". The New York Times. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=health&res=9D0CE0DB1538F930A35752C1A967958260. Retrieved on 2006-07-25.
- Marriott, Michel (November 4, 1991). "Iowa Gunman Was Torn by Academic Challenge". The New York Times. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=health&res=9D0CE5DB1538F937A35752C1A967958260. Retrieved on 2006-07-25.
- Overbye, Dennis (March 27, 2007). "A Tale of Power and Intrigue in the Lab, Based on Real Life". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/27/science/27dark.html?ei=5087%0A&em=&en=60699d2d8b90a79f&ex=1175227200&pagewanted=all. Retrieved on 2007-04-01.
