The University of Arizona had plenty of warning, as recently as Sept. 6, that Murad Dervish might pose a serious danger to faculty and other members of the hydrology department, faculty emails show.
Tim Steller One of Tom Meixner's colleagues tried to warn University of Arizona officials as recently as last month about the potentially lethal threat he thought Murad Dervish posed.Meixner, the head of the Department of Hydrology and Atmospheric Sciences, paid the price himself Wednesday when he was shot and killed at the Harshbarger Building on campus where he worked.
He concluded,"Finally, the University needs to be more cognizant that failure to be more proactive may present a liability issue, should the unthinkable and worst possible outcome of this situation come to pass," he wrote."If OGC and UAPD don't get that, then maybe the Dean or the Provost will." Even an exclusionary order that the university had drawn up against Dervish had not yet been served on him. Such an order couldn't stop him from entering campus, of course, but it would give police leverage for responding to him and show a level of effort at protection.
Confrontations came quicklyDervish came into the department in the fall of 2021, a 45-year-old master's-degree student with a job in the department as a teaching assistant. Before long he was in conflict with faculty. By January, it appears, something else had happened. Dervish wasn't so diplomatic in a Jan. 17 email to Castro:"What do you and that piece of s*** **** trash Meixner think, I'm just gonna slink away into a corner while you **** me in the ****** *******?!! This incident is COMPLETELY HIS FAULT."
Lack of urgency It's not unusual for a big school like the University of Arizona to have students or former students who harass or threaten people, causing fear and worry. In fact, Dervish wasn't the only former student sending threatening emails to faculty at the Harshbarger Building. "We thought they were going to train us," he said."Their advice was to block his emails and send a cease and desist letter."
What could be different about Dervish is the record he has of crime and violence. By simply emailing the San Diego County District Attorney's Office I was able to find out that in 2011, Dervish was convicted of"elder abuse causing great bodily injury and a weapons allegation." Inaction will be costlyOf course, Meixner's murder takes place in a social context that makes it less shocking and harder to prevent. We live in a society with pervasive mental disturbances, violence that is modeled constantly, and easy access to guns.
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