Police said Haldr was a former student and employee who filed a suit against the university a couple of years ago. He lost the suit and the appeal.
Haldr was being treated for a bullet wound in the stomach, police said. He was taken into custody late Friday after SWAT teams brought the bizarre seven-hour drama to an end.
"We are incredibly saddened that this kind of thing should happen in any setting," University President Edward Hundert said.
"A university should be a place where people come to grow and try to become themselves more fully and serve in the community and learn," said Hundert. "This kind of incident is antithetical to the kind of experiences that we would hope would happen on our nation's university campuses."
The incident began around 4:00 p.m. Friday when according to witnesses, who spoke to WKYC-TV, Haldr wearing military fatigues and a helmet broke through a glass door with a sledgehammer and entered the modernistic $62 million Peter B. Lewis building.
One of the victims was shot outside and taken to a hospital. The other victim was shot inside the building and died later at University Hospital. The coroner identified the person killed as 30-year-old Norman Wallace. No other information was immediately available.
But many people were apparently saved by being able to take refuge in the many shielded spaces afforded by the building's unusual architecture, keeping in touch with those outside by cell phone and even e-mail.
People inside told of hiding beneath desks as the intruder went from room to room.
Friday night Cleveland Police Chief Edward Lohn said several people were injured as police officers rescued them, with 60 people placed under guard for a time at one location inside.
"He looked like he was an older individual," Chief Lohn said. "No one knows what is the mind of someone else who commits these terrible acts. I feel for the families of the people who were injured."
The suspect, he said, was an individual who appeared to have been out of school for some time. Police officers said the shooter appeared to be a black man in his 40s or 50s.
After a standoff that lasted for several hours SWAT teams entered the Lewis building and several others nearby with weapons drawn. Three people, including a pregnant woman, were rescued shortly after.
"The cooperation among the different agencies made this possible," Chief Lohn said. "I think we all should be thankful that we do work so well together and trained so well so that this was put to an end quickly with very few unfortunate acts."
Far fewer students than usual were inside the building because the university calendar was in the period of final exams.
Case Western is located in University Circle, a usually quiet 550-acre concentration of approximately 50 cultural, medical, educational, religious, and social service institutions located just east of downtown Cleveland.
The school has a total enrollment of 9,530 students. The shooting happened about a week before 2,000 students are expected to graduate on May 18.
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