5 students stabbed, suspect killed on California university campus
5 students stabbed, suspect killed on California university campus
Published November 04, 2015 FoxNews.com
A suspect stabbed five people on a university campus in central California Wednesday morning before police shot and killed him, authorities said Wednesday.
Two of the victims attacked at the University of California, Merced, were taken by helicopter to hospitals for treatment, spokeswoman Lorena Anderson said. The three other victims were treated locally, she said.
Student Alex Lopez was heading to his class, when he realized something was wrong on campus.
"I was listening to a podcast, and there was a break in talking, and I just hear a gunshot," he said.
He said police and first responders flooded the scene.
"You see this stuff all over the news and stuff and you see it happen to all these other schools," but you don't expect it to happen at your school, said Lopez, 21.
Few details about the stabbing were immediately available, but the incident occurred at around 8 a.m. local time in the Classroom and Office Building, KCRA.com reported. The suspect was reportedly apprehended.
The rural school is about 120 miles south of Sacramento. The campus in the city of Merced opened a decade ago -- the first new school built in the University of California system since 1965, the university says on its website.
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2015/11/04...-at-uc-merced/
UC Merced Stabbing Suspect Was Upset Over Study Group Eviction: Sheriff
NOV 5 2015, 10:29 PM ET
UC Merced Stabbing Suspect Was Upset Over Study Group Eviction: Sheriff
by PHIL HELSEL and TRACY CONNOR
Police: Merced Stabbing Not Related to Terrorism 0:53
A college freshman who stabbed four people at the University of California Merced before being killed by police apparently carried out the attack because he was upset over being kicked out of a study group, officials said Thursday.
Merced County Sheriff Vern Warnke said authorities discovered a two-page "script" while conducting an autopsy on suspect Faisal Mohammad, the 18-year-old freshman who carried out the attack.
"He had gotten kicked out of a study group and was upset with one of the students, and apparently took his anger to the extreme level," Warnke said.
Two students, a construction worker who interrupted the first stabbing, and a student adviser were stabbed in the attack that began in a classroom at around 8 a.m. Wednesday, officials said. All are expected to survive.
http://media4.s-nbcnews.com/j/newscm...ux-320-320.jpg
This undated photo provided by the University of California, Merced shows freshman Faisal Mohammad, killed after a stabbing spree. University of California, Merced via AP
Investigators also found zip ties, a night vision scope, a safety hammer used to break glass, rolls of duct tape and two bags of petroleum jelly in a backpack left at the scene, officials said Thursday.
According to the two-page note, Mohammad apparently planned to use the zip ties to handcuff students in the class and he hoped to ambush a police officer and take his or her gun, Warnke said.
The two bags of petroleum jelly discovered in a backpack were to be spread on the floor in an attempt to create "a kind of a slip and slide" to hinder anyone entering the class, he said.
Mohammad stabbed a student inside the classroom, then attacked a construction worker who heard the sound of a disturbance and investigated, police said. He then ran down a flight of stairs and stabbed another student and a student adviser, police said.
UC Merced police fatally shot Mohammad after he turned toward officers with the weapon, police said. "His plan went haywire because people fought back," Warnke said.
"The fortunate part is that we've got some very brave students, we have a very brave construction worker that stopped this from going on," Warnke said. "He got so befuddled at the activities that had happened it took his script away from him and I think that's what happened."
Investigators found zip-tie handcuffs, a night vision scope, a safety hammer used to break glass, rolls of duct tape and two bags of petroleum jelly in a backpack left at the scene, officials said.
After the attack in the classroom, the plan was to go elsewhere on campus, including a dormitory, and cause of "tragedies," Warnke said. Some fellow students were specifically named in the note, he said.
The FBI is assisting in the investigation. Warnke said there is no indication in any evidence reviewed so far of connections to terrorist groups, or of a political or religious motivation.
"There is still nothing to indicate anything, and I mean anything, that this is other than a teenage boy that got upset with fellow classmates and took it to the extreme," he said.
Mohammad was a freshman computer science and engineering major from Santa Clara, a Northern California community in the Bay Area. Mohammad graduated from Santa Clara's Wilcox High School in June, officials said.
Alexa Lino, who worked on the high school newspaper with Mohammad, described him as a "very quiet and reserved guy."
"He'd always sit in the back of the room. But when you talked to him, he was nice and willing to help," she said. "This is honestly just unexpected."
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/...r-plot-n458256