Faisal Mohammad, a computer science and engineering major from Santa Clara, California, began stabbing people Wednesday morning in a freshman general education class in which he was enrolled. Hes known Mohammad since the 7th grade and the two were in a couple classes together.
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UC Merced Chancellor Dorothy Leland told reporters Thursday that the motive for the attack is unknown but appears to stem from “personal animosity, not a political agenda”.
“At this point, it would be irresponsible to draw such conclusions based exclusively on the ethnicity of the suspect”. Authorities did a thorough background check on Mohammad and his family, checked his electronic devices and searched his campus dormitory, and all they found was a handwritten “laundry list” of items found in the backpack, he said.
Sheriff Vern Warnke added that it was an ‘act of an individual for a vendetta… nothing to indicate there was any political or religious motivation’.
“Petroleum jelly could be used as an explosive”, Warnke said.
“Don’t know what his intentions were, but I don’t think they were very nice”, Warnke said.
A bomb squad found items, including petroleum jelly, which officials referred to as “poor man’s C-4” in Mohammad’s backpack. The sheriff also said he praised Allah in his writings. The FBI is assisting in the investigation, he said. “And there is nothing they could find”, Warnke said. “There was zero radar on this fellow”. “So he got closer, he probably passed within about five feet of me and I noticed he was gripping something thick and black in his hand”, Christopherson said.
Velasquez says Mohammad would ignore him if he tried to talk to him and never walked to class with anyone.
“At first I thought it was just an activity or something and then I quickly realized they were chasing the person that was out in front”. One student who knew Mohammad’s room mate said the suspect was “rarely ever in the room”.
The same was said about Mohammad’s time at Wilcox High in Santa Clara.
One of the student victims and the construction worker were treated and released from local hospitals, while the other two are still receiving treatment.
School officials said Thursday morning that Mohammad lived on campus.
Classes were canceled until Friday at the university about 120 miles south of Sacramento in the farm-rich San Joaquin Valley. Authorities didn’t release their names.
Construction workers remodeling a campus building heard a scuffle in a classroom, and when one – identified as Byron Price, aged 31 – went to investigate, the assailant lunged at him and stabbed him, the Sun-Star reported, quoting the worker’s father, John Price. Mohammad then turned on Price, stabbing him and escaping to attack two others before police shot him. Warnke credited the worker with saving the life of one of the victims.
The school says a student remained hospitalized Thursday, and a staff member who suffered a collapsed lung was recovering after surgery.
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Stabbings involving multiple victims on college campuses have not raised as much alarm as mass shootings since the attacks do not usually result in as many deaths or injuries.
