CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — Classes are canceled for the second day in a row as the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill comes to grips with the loss of one of their own, Professor Zijie Yan. His death sent shockwaves through the community in Chapel Hill.

Some students, who were on campus through the three-hour lockdown, criticized the university's response. They said the actions of professors and staff during the potential active shooter threat were not uniform and some seemed caught off-guard. 

Tailei Qi, 34, appeared before a judge less than 24 hours after being taken into police custody. He is charged with first-degree murder in the killing of Yan, his academic adviser in the UNC Caudill Labs building on Monday.

University leaders said they sounded emergency sirens and sent alerts within minutes of the the first 911 call, reporting a shooting on campus.

Some students are still reeling from the incident, including Ed Kellermann.

Kellermann is a third-year law school student at UNC. He said he was in the library of the Van Hecke-Wettach School of Law to finish some reading before his next class on Monday afternoon. He said he suddenly received an alert for an armed and dangerous person shortly after 1 p.m.

“Everyone was panicked for a few seconds, and no one really knew what to do, everyone froze,” Kellermann said.

The 24-year-old described a chaotic situation.

“My peers that were in classrooms at UNC law had experiences ranging from professors jumping into action and barricading the door, turning out the lights and stopping instruction to professors who continued to teach up to 40 minutes into an active shooter situation,” Kellermann said.

Kellermann did not feel the law school faculty and student body were on the same page. To highlight what he felt to be a disconnect, Kellermann took to social media and shared his frustrations.

In a video posted on TikTok during the lockdown, Kellerman talked about feeling unsafe.

“What’s more interesting to me though is the fact that UNC law has no emergency procedures in place besides just simply locking the doors. We should all be downstairs ideally with things barricaded, but we aren’t doing that,” the third-year law student said on Monday afternoon.

A day later, Kellermann said many people had commented on the video as if it was a sounding board.

“My comments section now serves as a laundry list of experiences,” Kellermann said.

Since the first press conference was convened early this week, university leaders have continued to stress how the emergency action plan was kickstarted almost immediately after gunfire was reported.

How well those protocols were followed and whether some knew what to do is part of the current review process. UNC Police Chief Brian James has been tasked with reviewing the university's response after the shooting.

James responded to the complaints by some students, like Kellermann, who openly questioned the effectiveness of the campus emergency response at Tuesday’s press conference.

“That information is disseminated to every faculty and staff member on campus,” the chief said. “We always have to be prepared in case we have a situation like this. We will go back and look at anything we could have done better, and we will make sure that it doesn’t ever repeat itself.”

“The reality is that action plan was not followed uniformly at UNC law, and that action plan was not followed campus-wide,” Kellermann said.

James said he leaves room for exploring what aspects of current protocols, if necessary, could be improved during this assessment of the crisis. “There are certainly some lessons to be learned from this incident,” he said.

UNC Chancellor Kevin Guskiewicz invited students and the Carolina community to attend a ringing at the Bell Tower on Wednesday at 1:02 p.m. in memory of Yan.