UCLA student in critical condition after her throat is slashed in science lab [Updated]

A male UCLA student slashed the throat of a female student at a campus science lab this afternoon, authorities said.

Details about the attack were sketchy. The victim, whose name was not immediately released, was taken to Ronald Reagan-UCLA Medical Center in critical condition.

The suspect was taken into custody by UCLA police, who sealed off Young Hall, home of the school's chemistry department, after the attack.

"We have asked students to stay away from Young Hall," UCLA police spokeswoman Nancy Greenstein said.

The incident was reported at 12:21 p.m. UCLA said the attack occurred on the sixth floor of Young Hall.

It was unclear whether the victim and suspect knew each other.

[Updated at 2:13 p.m.: The source said that witnesses have told police some sort of verbal altercation occurred just before the attack.

Students at the lab were stunned by the violence. Several told The Times that they saw a woman staggering out with a teacher's assistant applying pressure to her bloody neck moments after the attack.]

-- Andrew Blankstein, with Anthony Pesce and Spencer Weiner at UCLA

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Comments

[theCanimalsHusband]

This crime of racism is abhorent.

[Verballistic]

Let's hope this woman recovers fully and doesn't suffer the same grim fate as Annie Le, the young California student who was allegedly murdered by a fellow lab worker at Yale University just last month!!

[kristin]

This is just crazy. What is this world coming to?

[Martina]

What needs to happen to spur a national movement in support of education and intervention that declares it unacceptable for men to attack women? It seems taboo to discuss these individual acts of violence against women as a societal problem.

The abuse and murder of thousands of women each year due to domestic violence and random violence hasn't been able to break the taboo.

Will the killing of Yale student Annie Lee and the attempted murder of this UCLA grad finally convince the nation that we need to begin talking about violence against women, begin to teach our men that they do not deserve to exercise control over women as a release for whatever anger, alienation, frustrations they are experiencing?

We cannot throw our hands up anymore and speculate about why these things happen as if the disciplines of History, Sociology, Psychology do not exist; As if common sense does not exist. When one group of people is consistently the aggressor against another group, especially when there is no rational reason, the individual acts of violence are not coincidence -- it is a problem that exists on a societal level. We are all responsible for stopping this violence. If we don't begin to act, we will all know someone who has been a victim, or for women, we will be the victim.

[julie]

a copycat?

[Jari]

One has to wonder if this was a so-called copy-cat crime, patterned after the tragic murder of doctoral student Annie Le in a lab at Yale University last month. Let us pray for the recovery of this young woman at UCLA.

[James]

Intresting that an altercation would lead to such a incindent. Perhaps the suspect had gone in to the College to day wanting to hurt someone.
As far as Martina states I don't think this anything to do with the victim being a woman. This just sounds like some sick idiot who feels its ok to hurt people.

[Baffled Observer]

James, if you were a woman, you'd know that sick idiots who feel it's OK to hurt people quite often go looking for women to hurt. The reason is, they're less likely to get pounded themselves. Women are usually smaller than men, usually not as strong, and are less likely to have experience in fighting. So the sick idiots--who, oddly, rarely seem to be sick enough to take a chance on getting hurt themselves--pick us out.

This is a tiny minority of men, but in terms of numbers, it's quite a few people.

[anon]

Put men under a curfew already. Sheesh.

[jona]

Without a profile of the assailant this is not really a story. YOU idiots work even less than the AP

[jafly]

The #1 threat to women and their health and well-being seems to be men rather than cancer or drunk drivers or terrorists for that matter. It's not just these two highly publicized incidents in college labs, it's everyday news -- mostly domestic violence, but also random attacks/rapes, etc. I've often noted that male-on-female violence (resulting in death or severe injury) is accepted in our culture at a level which would cause widespread protests and rioting in the streets if instead it was the same level of violence (# of incidents and severity) involving one race against another, one religion against another, etc. in this country.

[Anny Jacoby]

Keeping this young lady in our thoughts and prayers.

[Lorraine Freeman]

I work in a male-dominated industry (IT). In non-California workplaces, the endless harassment and discrimination made the workplace unbearable. No physical attacks but everything else (out-of-control screaming from some, being shunned by others, horrible rumors being spread, managers doing nothing to keep you safe, etc.

I went into hiding and worked from home as much as possible to avoid the crazies.