The graduate student charged with fatally shooting his professor at the University of North Carolina has been charged in the slaying at the school’s flagship Chapel Hill campus. 

Tailei Qi, 34, made his first court appearance on Tuesday, and faces charges of first-degree murder and felony possession of a weapon on campus in the slaying of physics professor Zijie Yan.

During a brief hearing, Orange County Superior Court Judge Sherri Murrell ordered Qi to be held without bond, as an interpreter relayed the judge’s remarks to him in Mandarin.

When the hearing ended, Qi bowed to his interpreter, his attorney and the guards before they took him away in handcuffs. Dana Graves, a public defender who represented Qi at the hearing, left the courtroom without talking to reporters.

Orange County District Attorney Jeff Nieman will not seek the death penalty for Qi, after vowing not to seek execution for any defendants when running for office two years ago. 

Tailei Qi, 34, made his first court appearance on Tuesday, and faces charges of first-degree murder and felony possession of a weapon on campus

During a brief hearing, Orange County Superior Court Judge Sherri Murrell ordered Qi to be held without bond, as an interpreter relayed the judge’s remarks to him in Mandarin

Qi’s next court date has been set for September 18. 

Authorities haven’t publicly discussed a possible motive for the attack, which unfolded on Monday afternoon in a palcomtech campus lab. 

The victim, Yan, was an associate professor in the Department of Applied Physical Sciences who had worked at the school since 2019. He was shot dead in Caudill Labs. 

The attack led to a roughly three-hour lockdown of the campus, just a week after students returned for the start of the fall semester. 

UNC Chancellor Kevin Guskiewicz said in a message to the campus community his team had met with Yan´s colleagues and family to express condolences on behalf of the campus.

‘He was a beloved colleague, mentor and friend to many on our campus,’ Guskiewicz said.

On Wednesday, the school´s iconic Bell Tower will ring in honor of Yan´s memory and students are encouraged to take a moment of silence, he wrote. The school also canceled classes through Wednesday.

In a page that has been taken down since the attack, Qi was listed on the school’s website as a graduate student in Yan’s research group and Yan was listed as his adviser. 

He previously studied at Wuhan University in China before moving to the US and earning a masters in mechanical engineering at Louisiana State University in 2021.

The accused killer Qi (left) was a graduate student in the victim, Yan’s, research group and Yan (right) was listed as his adviser

Qi is escorted out of the Orange County Courthouse following his first court appearance on Tuesday in Hillsborough, North Carolina

Qi has been charged by the UNC Police Department with first-degree murder and possession of a weapon on educational property, both felony charges

The judge ordered Qi, a University of North Carolina graduate student, held without bond on charges alleging he shot and killed his faculty advisor

Qi, who lives in Chapel Hill, was arrested soon after the shooting, with local news footage appearing to show him surrendering to cops without incident.

‘To actually have the suspect in custody gives us an opportunity to figure out the why and even the how, and also helps us to uncover a motive and really just why this happened today. Why today, why at all?’ UNC Police Chief Brian James said. 

‘And we want to learn from this incident and we will certainly work to do our best to ensure that this never happens again on the UNC campus.’

Campus police received a 911 call reporting shots fired at Caudill Labs just after 1 pm Monday, James said. 

An emergency alert was issued and sirens sounded two minutes later, starting a lockdown led frightened students and faculty to barricade themselves inside dorm rooms, classrooms and other school facilities.

Officers arriving at the lab building found a faculty member who had been fatally shot, James said. Based on witness information, police took the suspect into custody just after 2.30pm, according to the chief.

Jones declined to elaborate on the arrest, but TV station WRAL reported it took place in a residential neighborhood near campus.

The lockdown was lifted around 4.15pm.

Yan led the Yan Research Group, which Qi joined last year, according to the group´s UNC webpage. 

He earned his PhD in materials engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York and previously worked as an assistant professor at Clarkson University.

Qi is a graduate student in the Department of Applied Physical Sciences who studies nanopartical synthesis and light-matter interaction.

Qi (second right) and his academic advisor Yan (left) were seen in a photograph previously circled by the college before the horror attack on Monday

Qi can be seen in an image provided to WRAL sitting on the ground about a mile away from the campus, wearing a dark colored shirt and glasses

The shooting struck fear into the campus.

Noel Harris, a senior journalism student, said she spent several confusing and scary hours locked down in a media management and policy class reading news coverage, listening to police scanners and waiting for updates from the university about whether the campus was still in danger.

When a police officer came by to check on her classroom, those inside asked him to slide his badge under the door first, out of caution, Harris said. 

The officer told the classroom the campus was being cleared and they were safe but still recommended they hold tight until an all-clear was issued. 

Soon after, Harris started seeing people carefully climbing out of the windows of an adjacent building, a scene she captured on now widely-shared video.

‘That’s when I then saw the students jumping from the building. So it was just like, OK, so is it really safe? What’s going on?’ she said.

She said Tuesday she was still trying to get clarity about what led the students to exit through the windows of Phillips Hall, which houses mathematics and other classes and was not the scene of the shooting.

‘When this was happening … I felt myself just being scared and shocked, but then not shocked at the same time because it’s like, this happens every day,’ Harris said.

The university has about 20,000 undergraduate students and 12,000 graduate students.