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Gang LU
Classification: Mass murderer
Characteristics: Shooting rampage at the University of
Iowa
Number of victims: 5
Date of murder:
November 1,
1991
Date of birth: 1963
Victims profile: Christoph K. Goertz, professor
/ Dwight R. Nicholson, chairman / Robert Alan Smith, assistant
professor / Linhua Shan, a fellow graduate
student / T. Anne Cleary, the assistant
vice president for academic affairs
Method of murder:
Shooting
Location: Iowa City, Iowa, USA
Status: Committed suicide by shooting himself the same day
University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa
Friday, November 1, 1991
28-year-old honor student Gang Lu
believed a scholarship that went to Chan Lin-hua, a rival student,
should have been his. He believed the use of a handgun, i.e., violence,
was a proper means for resolving this dispute.
In May 1991, Gang filed for a gun
permit, which he received and then purchased a handgun in July. He then
spent the next several months shooting the gun at practice ranges until
he was dead on target. He also continued to plan his revenge on his
college's physics department should his appeal fail.
Professor Chris Goertz directed the
research that Gang was involved in for his Ph.D. Professor Robert "Bob"
Smith collaborated with Chris on part of the research. Gang appealed the
scholarship award to Chan with Dwight Nicholson, Chair of the Department
of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Iowa, who was confident to
Gang that the decision would be overturned. However, the appealed was
denied by the office of the vice-president for academic affairs.
Around 3:40 this afternoon, during its
regularly weekly meeting, Gang abruptly stands up and leaves the
meeting. He goes to the floor below to see if Dwight is in his office.
He's there, quietly working away. Gang returns to the meeting upstairs
and enters the room, carrying the handgun. Chris is sitting closest to
door and Gang kills him with a shot to the back of his head. Gang then
assassinates his rival, Chan with a bullet to the forehead. It shatters
his glasses as well as taking his life.
By now everybody else in the room is
scrambling for cover - or a way out. Bob attempts to crawl underneath
the table. Gang takes two steps toward him and shoots him in the right
hand and chest. Bob collapses to the floor and Gang leaves the room.
As he heads downstairs and reloads the gun. He reaches Dwight's office,
stands in the doorway and fires a round into his head. The next shot
missed the mark, so Gang fired another round into Dwight's head and the
Chair of the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of
Iowa dies at his desk.
Gang then recalls he left Bob alive
upstairs. He rushes back upstairs and into the meeting room. Two young
scientist are crouched over Bob, loosening his clothes and talking to
him. From where Bob is on the floor, he can see Chris still sitting in
his chair, his head at an unnatural angle. Gang orders the two young
scientists out of the room at gunpoint. He returns to Bob and fires two
bullets into his head, killing him. To ensure Chris and Chan are dead,
he plugs two more bullets into Chris and one more into Chan.
Gang then leaves the building, crosses
two streets, enters another building and goes to the second floor. He
talks with Miya Sioson, a young student working as a temp for Vice-President
for Academic Affairs T. Anne Cleary, who denied his scholarship appeal.
Miya calls Anne out of her office and Anne talks to Gang briefly before
he raises the gun and shoots her in the face. Miya begins to stand up
when Gang turns and fires on her. The bullet tears through her mouth
and spinal cord. He reloads and climbs to the top of the stairs and
begins to hear the shouts from the police. He enters an empty
conference room, takes off his jacket, folds it and then kills himself,
twelve minutes after he fired the first shot. Miya was left a
quadriplegic.
Victims:
T. Anne Cleary
Chris K. Goertz
Chan Lin-hua
Dwight R. Nicholson
Robert "Bob" Alan Smith
Gang Lu
(1963 - November 1, 1991), born in Beijing, China, (surname
Lu; Chinese: 卢刚 Lú Gāng) was a graduate student
in physics at the University of Iowa. On Friday,
November 1, 1991, using a .38 caliber revolver and also
carrying a .22 caliber handgun, he shot and killed five
people on the Iowa campus in Iowa City, seriously
wounded another, then committed suicide.
Those killed in Van Allen Hall, the
physics department's building, were Christoph K. Goertz,
a professor in the department and Lu's academic advisor;
Dwight R. Nicholson, chairman of the physics and
astronomy department; Robert Alan Smith, an assistant
professor; and Linhua Shan, a fellow physics graduate
student, also from China. T. Anne Cleary, the assistant
vice president for academic affairs, was killed in
Jessup Hall, the main administration building, where a
student employee, Miya Rodolfo-Sioson, was shot in the
spine, permanently paralyzing her arms and legs.
Lu had received his doctoral degree
the previous May. Months before the shootings, he wrote
five letters explaining the reasons for his planned
actions. According to university officials, four of the
letters are in English and were intended to be sent to
news organizations. One is in Chinese. The letters have
not been released to the public. According to the
university, Lu said in the letters that he was angry and
jealous that his doctoral dissertation had not received
a prestigious academic award. Linhua Shan had received
the award.
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 published 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, 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.
Books
Chen, Edwin (1995). Deadly Scholarship: The True
Story of Lu Gang and Mass Murder in America's
Heartland. Carol Publishing Corporation. ISBN
155972241X.
The University of Iowa shooting
was a school shooting that occurred at the University 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.
Perpetrator and motives
The perpetrator of the shooting was 28-year-old
Gang Lu (family name Lu; Chinese: 卢刚 Lú Gāng), a former
graduate student at the University of Iowa. Gang Lu was a physics and
astronomy student and had received his doctoral degree from the
university in May of 1991. His dissertation was titled Study of the "Critical
Ionization Velocity" Effect by Particle-in-Cell Stimulation. He was
still living in Iowa City after he had finished school.
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 dissertation did not
receive the prestigious D.C. Spriestersbach Dissertation Prize. This
prize included a monetary award of $2,500. Gang Lu believed that winning
the prize would have made it easier for him to land a job.
The Spriestersbach prize was awarded to Linhua Shan
for his dissertation entitled "Electromagnetic Effects in Saturn's B
Ring". Both Shan and Lu were unable to find jobs in academia outside
of the University of Iowa because of the recession. Normally the
department would have given them both a temporary postdoctoral
fellowship. Unfortunately there was only enough money to support one of
them. The postdoctoral fellowship was awarded in favor of Shan as the
faculty felt he deserved it more than Lu.
The shooting
On Friday, November 1, 1991, Gang Lu attended a
physics and astronomy department meeting in Van Allen Hall. A few
minutes after the meeting began, Lu took a .38 caliber revolver out of
his jacket and began shooting. Dr. Christoph K. Goertz, Dr. Dwight R.
Nicholson, Dr. Robert Alan Smith, and Linhua Shan were all slain.
Dr. Goertz was Gang Lu's dissertation chairperson and
one of America's leading space plasma physicists. Dr. Nicholson was one
of Lu's committee members and the chair of the physics and astronomy
department. Dr. Smith was a plasma physicist and was also on Lu's
dissertation committee. Linhua Shan had once been roommates with Gang Lu
and was also a student of Dr. Goertz.
After the shooting at Van Allen Hall, Gang Lu walked
three blocks to Jessup Hall. Lu requested to see T. Anne Cleary, the
associate vice president for academic affairs, who was the grievance
officer at the university. Cleary was fatally wounded and passed away
the following day at University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics. Miya
Rodolfo-Sioson, a temporary student employee in the grievance office,
was shot for reasons unknown as she was not on Lu's hit list. Rodolfo-Sioson
survived but was left paralyzed from the neck down. She passed away from
breast cancer in 2008.
University President Hunter Rawlings III was another
person on Lu's hit list but was off campus at the time of the shooting.
Gang Lu committed suicide in Jessup Hall as police arrived at the scene.
The following day, November 2, a Saturday, the
University of Iowa Hawkeyes Football team, coached by Hayden Fry, would
honor those that were killed by stripping their game helmets of all
markings in a symbolic gesture of mourning. The Hawkeyes would go on to
win their game against Ohio State.
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," originally published in The New Yorker, appeared in
the 1997 edition of Best American Essays. It 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. She had been close friends with Dr. Goertz.
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.
A documentary about the life of the lone survivor,
Miya Rodolfo-Sioson, entitled Miya of the Quiet Strength, was
released in 2009
Wikipedia.org
Gang Lu
A Chinese graduate physics student, Gang Lu resorted
to a killing rampage when his department did not reward his dissertation
with the award he believed it deserved.
On the afternoon of November 1,
1991, Lu went to the physics department of the University of Iowa and
shot at three dissertation-committee professors and a student. Then he
went to the administration building and shot the vice president for
academic affairs who supervised the award-giving and a student-secretary
before turning the gun on himself.
The only survivor of his academic tantrum was the
student-secretary working in the administration building who is now a
quadriplegic. If only Gang Lu's space-plasma theory had been a little
more engaging all this would have never happened.
Iowa University student kills 4,
himself
The Pittsburgh Press
November 2, 1991
A student described
as a brilliant loner went on a shooting rampage at the University of
Iowa after being passed over for an academic honor, killing a rival
student, three professors and himself.
The student, Gang Lu, also
critically wounded a university administrator and another staffer
yesterday before shooting himself to death, said Ann Rhodes, vice
president of university relations.
University of Iowa killer was top student, yet
still loner
The Indianapolis News
November 2, 1991
IOWA CITY, Iowa - The
graduate student who shot and killed a fellow physics student from
China, three professors and then himself Friday was described by
colleagues as brilliant, but a loner.
Gang Lu _ reportedly angry at being passed over for
an academic honor _ also critically wounded a University of Iowa
administrator and another staffer before shooting himself to death.
Fifth victim dies in Iowa shootings
The Boston Globe
November 3, 1991
IOWA CITY, Iowa -- A
college administrator died yesterday, the fifth shooting victim of a
former graduate student, Gang Lu, 28, who went on a rampage Friday at
the University of Iowa before shooting himself. T. Anne Cleary,
associate vice president of academic affairs, died yesterday. A
prosecutor said Lu had written letters saying he planned to murder
faculty members who did not nominate him for an academic honor. He had
filed a complaint with Cleary.
Gunman outlined plans in letters
University of Iowa killings weren't random
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
November 3, 1991
IOWA CITY, Iowa - The
gunman who killed five people and himself at the University of Iowa
wrote letters to news organizations and acquaintances outlining his
intentions, a prosecutor said Saturday.
Johnson County Attorney J. Patrick
White said that Gang Lu, 28, had written five three-page letters saying
he intended to kill members of the university physics and astronomy
department who had bypassed his dissertation in favor of that of another
Chinese graduate student.
Gunman in Iowa Wrote of Plans In
Five Letters
By Michael Marriott - The New York Times
Sunday, November 3, 1991
Late Friday afternoon when the
University of Iowa was slipping into what students here call "the
weekend mode," a brilliant former graduate student in physics stood up
during a scheduled meeting in his department and began, without a word,
to methodically extinguish some of the brightest minds the campus has
known.
In a melee of no more than 10 minutes, the student,
Gang Lu swiftly moved through two university buildings, seeking out six
specific targets and shooting each person at close range with a .38-caliber
revolver before fatally turning the weapon on himself, the authorities
said here today. Four were killed immediately, a fifth died today and
the sixth victim is in critical condition.
Mr. Lu, who was also armed with a .22-caliber handgun
that apparently was not used in the shootings, believed he had been
wronged by the university, investigators said. A prestigious academic
award that carried a $1,000 prize was awarded to another physics student,
Linhua Shan, who was one of those killed.
University officials said Mr. Lu believed his
doctoral dissertation should have earned the prize. J. Patrick White,
the Johnson County attorney, added, however, that Mr. Lu's "perceived
grievances" were more wide ranging. He refused to elaborate. Letters
Tell of Plans
The discovery of five of Mr. Lu's letters after the
shootings has convinced investigators here that he had detailed plans to
inflict deadly violence on a number of university employees, Mr. White
said at a news conference at the university today.
Joined by the University of Iowa's president, Hunter
R. Rawlings 3d, and other university officials, Mr. White today painted
a portrait of a darkly disturbed man who drove himself to success and to
destruction.
Despite the perception of Mr. Lu among those who knew
him as an outstanding scholar in theoretical space physics, Mr. White
indicated that there was a sinister edge to Mr. Lu's character well
before the shootings.
In the letters, four written in English and intended
to be sent to news organizations, and one written in Chinese and
intended for his native Beijing, Mr. Lu reportedly named his victims,
said William Fuhrmeister, the university's public safety director. None
of the letters were ever mailed, the authorities said. Mr. Fuhrmeister,
the university's public safety director, said Mr. Lu had left
instructions with acquaintances to mail the letters. The letters were
apparently turned over to the authorities after the shootings.
In the letters, other targets besides the six
shooting victims were also named Mr. White said, but he and other
officials refused to disclose thier identities. Mr. Fuhrmeister said the
letter in Chinese had not yet been translated. Students Are Horrified
The four men who were killed outright, all members of
the department of physics and astronomy, died shortly after they were
shot in the head, investigators said. They were Christoph K. Goertz, 47,
professor of physics and astronomy; Dwight R. Nicholson, 44, professor
and chairman of the department; Robert Alan Smith, associate professor
of physics and astronomy, and and Mr. Shan, a research investigator in
physics and astronomy who came to the university in 1989.
The fifth victim, T. Anne Cleary, 56, associate vice
president of academic affairs, died of her wounds early this afternoon,
a spokeswoman for the University's hospital, here said.
The sixth victim, Miya Rodolfo-Sioson, 23, a
receptionist in Ms. Cleary's office, is critical condition, the hospital
spokeswoman said. There was no indication if Ms. Rodolfo-Sioson was an
intended target, said Mr. White. Students who were drawn from their
classrooms by the shooting described the scene as shocking and
horrifying. Students said both Van Allen Hall, which houses the Physics
Department, and Jessup Hall, the administration building where two
people were shot and Mr. Lu took his own life, were filled with blood
and confusion.
Today Van Allen Hall named for James Van Allen, a
professor at the university who discovered in 1958 the earth's radiation
belts since named for him, stood silent and dark. A yellow police tape
sealed off the building's many double-doored entrances.
Dr. Van Allen a professor emeritus of physics and
astronomy, was in the building when the shooting began at 3:42 P.M. "I
didn't hear anything," he said. "I was up on the seventh floor doing
some work. At about 3:45 P.M. a young colleague of mine dashed into the
office and said, 'I recommend you don't open the door until I hear it's
O.K.' "
President Rawlings called the shootings a "terrible,
terrible tragedy" when he returned to campus from Ohio after he learned
of the sudden violence in this ordinary peaceful college town of 50,000
people.
Classes will be canceled Monday as investigations
continue into the shootings, said Ann Rhodes, vice president of
university affairs.
University officials could not clearly define Mr.
Lu's capacity at the university at the time of the shootings. Mr. Lu who
has been a slightly built fixture of scholarship in the corridors and
laboratories of the hall was reportedly working in his laboratories.
Ms. Rhodes said Mr. Lu received his doctorate degree
from the university in May of this year.
"He was staying on to do some work in the laboratory
while looking for employment," she said. She added that she was unable
to say whether Mr. Lu was on the university's payroll.
Mr. Lu, like the slain Mr. Shan, was a native of the
People's Republic of China, and both had excelled in the study of
physics, said Jack Fix, the associate chairman for astronomy.
"He was extremely bright and capable," Dr. Fix said
of Mr. Lu. Later he added, that the murders represented a "great
professional loss in addition to a great personal loss."
Shortly after university officials completed their
press conference a number of Chinese students had their own. "Lu was
kind of isolated. Don't like to communicate with other students," said
Tao An. "It was his personality."
Letters give motive for Iowa
shootings
Student
who killed 5 was bypassed for honors so he targeted faculty
The Beacon Journal
November 3, 1991
The student who
killed five people at the University of Iowa before turning a gun on
himself wrote letters saying he planned to murder faculty members who
didn't nominate him for an academic honor, a prosecutor said Saturday.
`His state of mind was that of a
premeditated, coldblooded murderer,' Johnson County Attorney J. Patrick
White said of Gang Lu, a former graduate student from China.
'Loner' announced his plot to
murder six on Iowa campus
The Pittsburgh Press
November 3, 1991
The gunman who shot
six University of Iowa employees, four fatally, before killing himself
wrote letters to news organizations and acquaintances outlining his
intentions, a prosecutor said.
Johnson County Attorney J. Patrick
White said at a news conference yesterday that Gang Lu, 28, wrote five
three-page letters saying he intended to kill members of the university
physics and astronomy department who bypassed his dissertation in favor
of another Chinese graduate student.
Iowa Gunman Was Torn by Academic
Challenge
By Michael Marriott - The New York Times
November 4, 1991
To many of the 28,000 students who attend the
University of Iowa, the Department of Physics and Astronomy seemed as if
it existed in a universe all its own.
For six years, Gang Lu, one of the department's most
gifted graduate students, knew that universe well as he explored the
mind-bending complexities of space plasma theory, his specialty. It is a
stream of science so narrow, experts say, that only about 300 people in
the world are conducting research in the field.
But acquaintances of Mr. Lu say the 28-year-old
native of Beijing reveled in a challenge -- as long as he triumphed.
And while many people knew him to be temperamental,
angered by what he saw as unfair treatment by some faculty members and
administrators, nobody was prepared for the rampage of murder and
suicide that he unleashed on Friday.
"He had a very bad temper and saw himself as No. 1,"
said Xuming Chi, a doctoral candidate who was a former roommate of Mr.
Lu. "He had a psychological problem with being challenged."
Mr. Lu was feeling especially pressured in recent
months, acquaintances said. He had continued to visit the department's
offices and laboratories in Van Allen Hall even after he received his
doctoral degree in May, said Mr. Chi and others who knew Mr. Lu.
Renowned Program
The department's doctoral program is nationally
recognized as highly competitive, one that can create great stress,
students and professors say. That stress is compounded by a shrinking
market in which a doctoral degree does not always translate into a job
befitting the education.
Still, Mr. Lu "seems to have obviously felt pressures
that are abnormal," said John Fix, the associate chairman for astronomy,
who was once a faculty adviser to Mr. Lu.
Mr. Lu has also been described by some who knew him
as a driven yet gentle person. Whatever went wrong was internal, Dr. Fix
said.
Mr. Lu had impressed professors with a computer
calculation of the properties of ionized gases. His work with these
substances, called plasmas by scientists, was the subject of the
doctoral dissertation he completed last spring, university officials
said.
It was the reception his dissertation received, less
enthusiastic than Mr. Lu thought it deserved, that apparently touched
off his rampage on Friday, said investigators who discovered letters in
which Mr. Lu had outlined his grievances and his plans to exact deadly
revenge.
"He had a personal belief that guns were an important
means to an individual to redress grievances," said J. Patrick White,
the Johnson County Attorney. Carried Two Guns
When Mr. Lu was found, dying from a self-inflicted
gunshot, the .38-caliber revolver used in the killings was found on him
as well as a loaded .22-caliber handgun that had not been used, Mr.
White said.
In the four neatly typed three-page letters that Mr.
Lu intended to be sent to news organizations, all but one of the victims
were named. Others named in the letters included the university's
president, Hunter R. Rawlings 3d.
"It's specuative as to whether these other names can
be fairly described as targets," Mr. White said.
Investigators said they also had a package of Mr.
Lu's possessions and a brief letter written in Chinese that he was seen
mailing ib Friday a little more than an hour before the shootings
started at 3:42 P.M.
How Mr. Lu acquired his weapons was partly explained
today by Sheriff Robert Carpenter of Johnson County.
Records indicate that Mr. Lu applied for a permit to
buy a firearm, a requirement in Iowa, on May 21. Three days later he was
granted the permit after producing documents, including his visa and
Chinese passport. Frightening Tantrums
He bought the .38-caliber snub-nose revolver at a
sporting shop called Fin and Feather, Sheriff Carpenter said. While Mr.
Lu legally owned the weapons, he did not have a permit to carry them,
the sheriff added.
Mr. Lu, who acquaintances said frightened some people
with abusive tantrums, was angry at the university's failure to award
him its Spriesterbach Dissertation Prize, which carried a $2,500 prize
and high prestige. He wrote several letters to university officials
appealing the decision to award the prize to Linhua Shan, another
promising graduate student from a small town in China.
Four years ago, Mr. Shan, 27, and Mr. Lu shared a
modest apartment near the university. Mr. Chi, 35, who also lived in the
apartment, said today that he warned Mr. Shan to move out because of Mr.
Lu's temperament.
"I warned him," Mr. Chi said Saturday. "When I heard
what happened at Van Allen Hall and somebody told me that he was Chinese,
I guessed: Gang Lu." A Second Shot
Mr. Lu killed three physics professors who were on
his dissertation committee, including the chairman of the department. At
one point he left the seminar room in Van Allen Hall, then returned and
shot one of the victims a second time, Mr. White said.
Crossing a campus dusted with snow Mr. Lu walked
several blocks to Jessup Hall, the administration building.
At Jessup Hall, he asked for T. Anne Cleary, the
associate vice president of academic affairs, whom he shot. He then
wounded Ms. Cleary's 23-year-old receptionist before going upstairs and
shooting himself.
The Van Allen Hall victims were killed outright. Dr.
Cleary died at University Hospitals Saturday. Miya Sonya Rodolpho-Sioson,
the receptionist, who is a honor student at the university, is in
critical condition.
Gunman returned to kill prof, witness
says
The Indianapolis Star
November 4, 1991
Iowa City, Iowa _ A
former student who went on a shooting rampage at the University of Iowa
left a professor injured in a meeting room but returned a few minutes
later and killed him, a witness said Sunday.
Paul Hansen, a research scientist in
the physics and astronomy department, said professors were 10 to 15
minutes into their weekly meeting Friday when Gang Lu stood up and shot
three people.
Student bought gun in may
The Cincinnati Post
November 4, 1991
When Gang Lu's
doctoral dissertation wasn't chosen by a University of Iowa committee
for an academic honor, he filed a complaint - and bought a .38- caliber
revolver. He took the gun to a weekly meeting of the physics and
astronomy department Friday, where he began a rampage in which he killed
five people and himself. After being denied the honor in May, Lu filed a
complaint about the nomination process. Lu, 28, was issued a permit to
buy a handgun on May 24.
Gang Lu
It was November 1, 1991, at around 3.40 pm when Gang
Lu made his mark. He purposefully walked up to a group of professors and
students at the University of Iowa and proceeded to kill four of them.
Before they victims even had time to understand what
was going on the gunman was on the run. He headed toward the main
administration building of the campus where he shot and injured the
assistant vice president and her assistant. One of these woman died the
next day in hospital.
When campus police finally arrived on the scene of the
shootings they found the Gang Lu, the gunman, dead. He had put a bullet
into his own head. Next to his body was the murder weapon, and inside a
jacket pocket was another gun, a .22 pistol, that had not been fired.
When police looked into the killers background they
discovered an almost brilliant student. Gang Lu had come to the school
from China. He was apparently quiet amazing when it came to theoretical
space physics, but it was because of this subject that he had acted out
with such violence against his fellow students and professors.
Gang Lu had recently been passed over for a cash prize
of $1000, and when we look at the victims and their relation to the
awarding of this prize we see that Gang Lu was very methodical in his
targeting of his victims, which makes this case particularly interesting.
The first victims was the chairman of the Physics and
Astronomy Department at the University. The second was a professor at
the same Department. Th third was a researcher at the same department,
and the forth was a fellow Chinese immigrant, Linhua Shan. It was Shan
who had won the $1000 that Gang Lu believed should have gone to him. The others where all involved
in the judging of this prize.
When police Gang Lu personal effects they
found a heap of letters he had written. All were addressed to various
news agencies, both in English and Chinese, and told of his prior
planning of the massacre, and also contained the names of others he was
hoping to add to his ‘kill list’. Unfortunately for
Gang Lu he could only erase five of these people before taking his own
life.
Miya Rodolfo-Sioson, 1968-2008
By Ruthanne Shpiner - BerkeleyDailyPlanet.com
Wednesday December 10, 2008
Miya Rodolfo-Sioson,
long-time advocate for disability rights, died at 10:45 a.m. December 3,
at Highland Hospital, with her brother Renato at her side. Miya was
being treated for inflammatory breast cancer. She was 40 years old.
In November 1991 Miya was about to
graduate with high honors from the Global Studies program of the
University of Iowa. She worked as a temp for the university’s Grievance
Officer in the Academic Affairs Office.
Gang Lu, a new Ph.D., un-happy
because he was denied a major dissertation prize, en-tered the office on
November 1 and shot the Grievance Officer and Miya. She was the only
person not on his hit list, and the last of the six people he shot
before turning the gun on himself.
She was the sole survivor of the
shooting, living for more than 17 years afterward. As a result of her
injuries, she became a quadriplegic.
In 1996 she and Renato joined their
mother Sonya in Berkeley. There she was well-known and admired as an
active and successful champion for people with disabilities and a
fighter against injustice. She sat on the Berkeley Commission on
Disability from 1998 to 2006, serving as chair for part of that period.
In 2002 she was hired by the
nonprofit organization Swift USA. She was the program coordinator for
foreign ex-change high school students, matching them with local host
families and organizing tours, until the cancer diagnosed in May 2007
rendered her unable to perform her duties.
Miya was noted for her humility,
compassion, wry humor, gentle disposition and warm personality. She
avoided dwelling on the circumstances that resulted in her disability,
focusing instead on the present and moving forward.
She will long be remembered in
Berkeley by those who benefited from her work as well as her family and
many friends. Kelley Kolberg, Miya’s morning attendant, said of her, “My
job with Miya was one of the best I’ve ever had. I’ve never known a more
remarkable person, not to mention great friend.”
A documentary about Miya will come
out in early 2009.
Miya Rodolfo-Sioson, in a photograph
taken in 1993 or 1994 in a classroom at the University of Iowa, where
she was majoring in Spanish.
Gang Lu
Gang Lu shot five people and himself at
the University of Iowa in 1991,
including Miya Sonya Rodolfo-Sioson
