Former UA student Murad Dervish attempted to buy a handgun from a seller online in March but couldn’t agree on the $550 purchase price, according to testimony from a police detective at a court hearing in October.
But it was something Dervish said in a text that so concerned the seller that he contacted the Tucson Police Department, the detective said.
Detective Todd Kauffman, of the University of Arizona Police Department, said Dervish had contacted a seller on a website called Arms List, which the detective said is like a “Craigslist for guns.”
Kauffman said at the Oct. 20 bond hearing that the seller would not go lower on the gun purchase and asked Dervish to stop wasting his time, according to a transcript of the court hearing.
“If you are still trying to haggle, then don’t waste your time because I’m not budging,” the seller texted Dervish.
The response from Dervish was “a couple of bucks doesn’t really (expletive deleted) matter at all since I am just going to use it to kill several people and then myself.”
The detective said in court that Dervish followed up that text saying he was just kidding. The seller was not identified in court testimony.
Kauffman said that investigators determined that Dervish purchased a 9mm handgun sometime between mid-August and early September through a private sale.
Authorities have said Dervish used a 9mm handgun to shoot Professor Thomas Meixner on Oct. 5 in the Hydrology Department. Kauffman said 11 shell casings were recovered from the area where the shooting took place. Police later found a loaded 9mm handgun in Dervish’s van when he was stopped hours after the shooting.
Dervish remains in the Pima County jail without bond.
Chief Paula Balafas of the University of Arizona Police Department shared information on the shooting death of a male professor on Oct. 5. The suspect, 46-year-old Murad Dervish, was arrested by the Department of Public Safety near Gila Bend three hours after the shooting.
Video by Jesse Tellez / Arizona Daily Star.
