Gang Lu

Gang Lu (born in Beijing) (1963 - November 1, 1991 ) (surname Lu; Chinese: 卢刚 Lú Gāng) was a Chinese physics student enrolled in the PhD program at the University of Iowa. On Friday, November 1, 1991, using a .38 caliber revolver and also carrying a .22 caliber handgun, he shot five people to death, seriously wounded another, and then committed suicide in what is called the Gang Lu Massacre.

The people he killed were Christoph K. Goertz (his advisor), Linhua Shan (a fellow PhD student from China), Dwight R. Nicholson (department chair), Robert Alan Smith (associate professor and Lu's co-advisor), and T. Anne Cleary (Vice President for Academic Affairs). A student employee, Miya Rodolfo-Sioson, was shot in her spine; this permanently paralyzed her arms and legs.

Months before, Gang Lu wrote five letters explaining the reasons for his planned actions. The university has these letters. 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 real reasons for the tragedy are still unknown today because Lu's 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.

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卢刚事件