Slain California university stabbing suspect studied engineering
By Curtis Skinner
(Reuters) - The student who attacked four people with a hunting knife at a University of California campus before being shot dead by police was identified on Thursday as a freshman majoring in engineering and computer science.
Merced County Sheriff Vern Warnke named the suspect as 18-year-old Faisal Mohammad, and told a news conference that while it was not clear what motivated the Wednesday attack that started in a classroom, all the evidence suggested it was personal.
Mohammad was a dormitory resident at UC Merced, according to officials at the campus of some 6,600 students in the heart of California's Central Valley, and he came from Santa Clara, 45 miles (70 km) southeast of San Francisco.
The attack, which sent two students, a university employee and a construction worker to the hospital with stab wounds, is under investigation by campus police, the sheriff's office and the FBI, the university said.
None of the injuries were considered life-threatening, it said, and all four victims are expected to fully recover.
Warnke said Mohammad was carrying plastic zip-tie handcuffs, a hammer, duct tape, a night-vision scope and two bags of petroleum jelly in a backpack. A bomb squad later destroyed the backpack.
"Don't know what his intentions were, but I don't think that they were very nice," Warnke said.
Officials said that minutes after walking into his second-story classroom on Wednesday morning, Mohammad attacked another student with a knife.
A construction worker who was in the building and heard the struggle rushed into the class and was also stabbed before the assailant fled, officials said. Warnke said the worker's actions probably saved the life of the first victim.
Outside the building, Mohammad encountered an academic adviser and stabbed her, before stabbing another student. He was shot dead by campus police after a foot chase, officials said.
The suspect's college dorm suite-mate, Andrew Velasquez, told local broadcaster KFSN-TV Mohammad generally kept to himself.
"Every time I would try and say something he would just ignore it," Velasquez said.
Classes at UC Merced, the newest addition to the 10-campus University of California system and located 135 miles (220 km) southeast of San Francisco, were canceled through Thursday.
The stabbings came about a month after a gunman killed nine people and himself at a college in Oregon, in the deadliest of dozens of U.S. mass shootings over the past two years.
(Reporting by Curtis Skinner from New York; Editing by Steve Gorman and Mohammad Zargham)
