Matthew Christopher Harris taken into custody in Colorado
By Sam Catanzaro
A former UCLA lecturer remains in custody after emailing a mass shooting threat to members of the school community.
As reported by the Los Angeles Times, the suspect is Matthew Harris, a former philosophy department postdoctoral researcher. On Monday night, Harris posted a video online showing footage of the 2017 Las Vegas mass shooting. In addition, Harris included footage from the film “Zero Day” based on the Columbine High School mass shooting.
Also posted was an 800-page manifesto titled “DEATH Sentences,” which Harris writes is “dedicated to domestic terrorism and violence” calls for “death to America” and instructs people to “go forth and murder them out of existence.”
Harris’ actions led to UCLA canceling all in-person instruction Tuesday.
As of 11:48 a.m. on Tuesday, Harris is in Colorado police custody, according to a campuswide notification from UCLA. Harris was taken into custody on Tuesday without incident after a standoff at his home in Boulder, Colorado.
In-person instruction resumed at UCLA on Wednesday.
Harris was a lecturer for numerous UCLA courses during his time at the university, including a philosophy course titled “Philosophy of Race.”
Harris was formerly placed on leave at UCLA in spring 2021 while the school looked into allegations that he sent a video including pornographic content to a student. His postdoctoral status was set to expire at the end of June last year.
