Checking and Killing processes of a user before deleting

I am working on a script to delete users from text file. However, before deleting, I wanna check if any process by a user is running and if running then kill all the processes and delete. Here's how, I'm doing this..

    if 
   #user doesn't exists then print user not exist
else
pids = `ps U "$name" -o pid | head -n -1` 
    if [ -n "$pids" ]
    then
    for pid in $pids
    do
        sudo kill -KILL $pid
    done
fi


     sudo userdel

 $name -r -f    
    echo     


       echo "The user - $name - has been deleted!"
    echo
    fi
    done < "$fname"                         # double-quote fname
    echo

So, basically its a loop to delete users and in that an if statement to make sure no process is being run by a user and if its being run then force close processes and delete user.

However, Its not working and it says pids: command not found.. Any solution, how to fix it? I'd appreciate your help, Regards