UC President Orders Flags at Half Staff to Honor Memory of UCSB Victims
UC President Janet Napolitano has called on the University of California community to send their thoughts and prayers for the students killed and injured on Friday night in a mass shooting near UC Santa Barbara (UCSB).
The shooting left six UCSB students dead and 13 others injured in the seaside college town of Isla Vista, according to the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office.
The victims have been identified by the Sheriff’s Office as: Veronika Weiss, 19, Katie Cooper, 22, Chris Martinez, 20, Cheng Yuan Hong, 20, George Chen, 19, and Weihan Wang, 20.
A fund has been established to help the victims and their families. A live webcast of a memorial service, scheduled for 4 p.m. Tuesday, can be viewed on the UCSB website.
"Our faculty, staff, students and trainees constitute a large UC family, and this loss saddens and touches all of us," said UCSF Interim Chancellor Sam Hawgood, MBBS, in an email to the UCSF community.
Students at UCSF have initiated a solidarity vigil for all UCSF faculty, staff, students and trainees. The vigil will take place on Wednesday, May 28, at 6 p.m., on Parnassus in Saunders Court.
The following is Napolitano's message to the community.
Colleagues,
By now I am sure that every member of the University of California community is aware of the horrific rampage near UC Santa Barbara this past Friday night that took the lives of six of our students and injured nine other students.
Words cannot adequately express my shock over this senseless event and my profound sadness about the loss of these young people. I ask that you join me in sending thoughts and prayers to the victims of this tragedy, their families and the entire Santa Barbara community.
This is a time for mourning and grieving, and for consoling and supporting each other. It will take time for our UCSB colleagues to recover and heal from this. To begin that healing, UCSB has canceled classes on Tuesday, May 27, and declared the day one of mourning and reflection. A memorial service organized jointly by students, staff and faculty will take place at 4:00 pm on campus. In the days and weeks ahead, as the campus continues to recover, I ask that you please extend understanding and compassion to our UCSB colleagues.
To honor the memories of the victims of Friday’s senseless and tragic events, I am ordering flags at all University of California facilities to be lowered to half-staff through Sunday, June 1. As you look upon those lowered colors, I hope you will pause to reflect on these lost members of our UC family.
During this terrible time for our UC community, I ask that you join me in the belief that the process of healing and reflection we will go through in the coming days will draw us closer as a university community. Together, we will get through this.
Yours very truly,
Janet
Janet Napolitano
President