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12.05.2016

USC professor fatally stabbed by PhD student

David Brown stabbed psychology professor Bosco Tjan after a "personal dispute."



Damn. In Los Angeles, a doctoral student at the University of Southern California was taken into custody after stabbing and killing a psychology professor in a campus building on Friday afternoon.

USC PhD student accused of fatally stabbing professor on campus

28-year-old David Jonathan Brown, PhD student in brain and cognitive science, is accused of fatally stabbing Bosco Tjan, a co-director of USC's Dornsife Cognitive Neuroimaging Center.

Police received a 911 call from USC's University Park campus about a victim with multiple stab wounds. Emergency responders found Tjan's body in a science building. He had been stabbed in the chest.




Brown, one of the students who worked in the lab under Tjan's supervision, was apprehended at the scene by campus public safety officers and turned over to Los Angeles city police.

It's unclear what led up to the killing, but officials were quick to call it a "targeted" incident.

"This was not a random act of violence," USC's Department of Public Safety said in a news release. "The Los Angeles Police Department believes this was the result of personal dispute."

Tjan was Brown's advisor. According to the Los Angeles Times, some faculty have speculated whether Brown attacked Tjan after receiving a "less than stellar" review from the committee that evaluates graduate students.

Tjan, who had taught at USC since 2001, was an expert on vision loss who focused on age-related ailments. According to a USC website, Tjan's lab was devoted to studying the "human visual system to address basic and translational questions pertaining to vision loss, restoration, and rehabilitation."

More here: 'Life is not going to be the same': Slaying of beloved USC professor leaves colleagues and friends crestfallen