The Merced County Sheriff’s Department said 18-year-old Faisal Mohammad wrote a two-page plan of revenge on those who had kicked him out of the study group.
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Mohammad had been carrying two plastic baggies of highly flammable petroleum jelly, ziptie handcuffs, night vision goggles, duct tape and a hammer in his backpack when he was shot in the back by officers.
A Fresno County bomb squad is testing a substance found in Mohammad’s backpack, authorities said.
Officers were searching the campus for possible other assailants.
“Sometimes you’re going to get shut down sometimes people are going to say no”, said Ricardo Romero, a UC Merced junior.
The first stabbing happened Wednesday morning at about 8 a.m. during a class in which Mohammad was enrolled, according to university officials. “And over time we are going to need to build that confidence back up in our students”, Leland said.
Mohammad began his rampage by stabbing a fellow student in a required general education course.
Sheriff Vern Warnke said that Price’s entrance into the classroom likely prevented the death of the first victim who was attacked.
“My intention was to break up the fight and help the teacher when nobody else could”, Price recalled Thursday. Price said Mohammad charged at him with the knife and looked scared. “If he wanted to, he could’ve killed me”.
Mohammad stabbed Price in the waist and fled, running down a flight of stairs.
“I looked the guy square in the eyes”.
Price said told the Merced Sun-Star (http://tinyurl.com/p79mf92 ) that it appeared the attacker was having fun.
“It would be like me referencing the Lord Jesus”, Warnke said. He was shot and killed by campus police Wednesday after he ran from the building.
University of California, Merced student Dolly Gonzalez, 20, is comforted by her father, Andres and mother Esperanza Gonzalez after she leaves the UC Merced campus following a stabbing in Merced, Calif., Wednesday, November 4, 2015. Then, the attacker lunged at the officer, and Christopherson took off running, afraid she’d be caught in the crossfire. “He skipped off”, Price said. He was shot dead by campus police after a foot chase, officials said. She said she heard two gunshots then turned and saw the officer standing over the body.
Yet despite its destructive capabilities, Warnke said the note found on Mohammad revealed the student planned to simply use the petroleum jelly by spreading it on the floor to make it slippery.
Despite his injury, he said, “I feel like what I did was right….” Both of the students injured were men, and as of Thursday morning, one student remained hospitalized, Leland said. The other was treated and released. The staff member suffered a collapsed lung and was recovering Thursday after surgery.
It’s not known what relationship, if any, existed between the assailant and the victims, said James Leonard, a school spokesman.
One of the assailant’s roommates, Andrew Velasquez, told KFSN that Mohammad was “antisocial” and didn’t talk much. “This is honestly just unexpected”.
“I never saw him walk with anybody” to class, he said.
“I knew someday it might, but I was just hoping it wouldn’t happen here”.
Mohammad graduated from Santa Clara’s Wilcox High School in June, officials said. “He wasn’t highly involved on campus but he was a good student, he did well academically”.
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This story will be updated as soon as more information becomes available.
