UPDATED – THE SUSPECT WAS MUSLIM : Four people WOUNDED in stabbing spree at UC Merced

by The Right Scoop

(UPDATED BELOW)

This is horrible:

More details:

LA TIMES – Five people have been stabbed on the UC Merced campus and the attacker was killed by school police, authorities said Wednesday.

The assailant launched the attack just before 8 a.m. outside a building of humanities and natural sciences classrooms and offices, said school spokeswoman Lorena Anderson.

She could not say if the attacker or the victims were students.

“I can tell you that we’re really shocked and saddened by this,” Anderson said. “We’re doing everything we can to contact family and parents to make sure everyone here is safe and secure.”

Classes have been canceled for the day and the campus is closed.

About 8 a.m., the school tweeted that there had been a stabbing and told people to avoid the area.

Within minutes, the school announced that a person was taken into custody and that there was “no active danger.”

Police shot and killed the attacker, Anderson said. No officers were injured. Two of the victims were airlifted to a local hospital and three others were treated at the scene, Anderson said. All five victims were conscious, she added.

I’ve been tipped off that the suspect is a possible Muslim of Middle Eastern descent and I have a name. But until I can get some confirmation on this, I won’t release it. I can’t even find any social media on the name I was given, so it may be a bad tip.

I’ll keep you updated as I get more information.

UPDATE: It looks like my source was correct. The name of the suspect who is now dead is 18-year-old Faisal Mohammad from Santa Clara, California:

MERCED STAR – A man who stabbed four people Wednesday morning at UC Merced before he was shot and killed by campus police was identified as Faisal Mohammad, a freshman student from Santa Clara.

Mohammad, 18,was killed by UC Merced police just after 8 a.m. on Scholars Lane Bridge, about 40 yards from the two-story classroom building where investigator’s said his violent spree began.

Sheriff Vern Warnke, who confirmed the identity to the Sun-Star, said investigators, including the FBI, were still looking into the motive for the attack and that it remained too early to release further details.

Little information about Mohammad was immediately available, other than he was a first-year student at UC Merced from Santa Clara, who turned 18 in late October.

The four victims, three men and one woman, suffered non-life-threatening injuries.

Investigators believe Mohammad entered a second-floor classroom as it was starting Wednesday and struggled with a male student, who was stabbed. The victim’s name has not been released.

Byron Price, a 31-year-old construction worker, was leading a crew remodeling a neighboring classroom when he heard the commotion and went to intervene. Sheriff Vern Warnke has described Price’s actions as heroic.

Price drew the suspect’s attention and was slashed around this waist during the confrontation. Price’s coworkers drove him to Mercy Medical Center where he was treated and later released.

Detectives believe Mohammad then left the building and stabbed another male student outside. He then stabbed a female university employee twice, officials have said.

The names of the final two victims have not been released.

Two university police officers chased Mohammad to the bridge, where he was shot and killed.

Unfortunately I still can’t find anything on this guy on social media, so I’m assuming he had a different name for that. But considering what’s been going on in Israel and that this guy was a Muslim, I’d say there was a high probability this was a terror attack.


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