Student ‘Smiled’ During Campus Knife Rampage

Sheriff Verne Warnke said the document contained names of students he sought to harm and other violent musings.

“His intentions were to go further than what he did”, Warnke said, noting that petroleum jelly could be lit on fire and thrown at people. Authorities said he used a knife with a 10-inch blade. The result of the federal probe found “nothing to indicate political or religious motivations to what he did”.

A construction worker in the building heard the struggle and rushed into the class, and was also stabbed before the assailant fled, officials said.

“During the course of their investigation, they have found nothing in this person’s history, personal belongings, electronic devices, or any other items to suggest anything other than this was an act of an individual for a vendetta”, the sheriff said. “There was zero radar on this fellow”. One of his roommates, Andrew Velasquez, told KFSN that Mohammad was “antisocial” and didn’t talk much. He added, “Every time I would try and say something he would just ignore it”. “It really is a reality check for all of us, because you see these things happening at other schools, but you never think it’s going to be your school”.

Patel said Mohammad enjoyed basketball, going to the mosque to pray and playing video games with his friends.

During the suspect’s autopsy, a handwritten, two-page manifesto was found in his pocket, which outlined his motive – he was upset at several students for kicking him out of a class study group.

Student Itzel Franco, 18, said half of her dorm remains evacuated because it is close to the site of where the assailant was shot. The staff member suffered a collapsed lung in the attack and is still recovering after successful surgery.

Classes would resume Friday at the university about 120 miles south of Sacramento in the farm-rich San Joaquin Valley. A district official said counselors were at the high school.

One student in the classroom was reported to have been stabbed by the suspect, and a contracted worker, upon hearing the commotion, was stabbed as he entered the scene believing the commotion to be a student fight.

Warnke says the contractor himself was wounded, but that his actions probably prevented the student victim from being injured more seriously.

Mohammad allegedly ran down a flight of stairs and then attacked a student and university staff member outside.

“The threat of a mass shooter on campus on Monday [at Fresno State] and then a knifing on Wednesday at Merced, it’s kind of disheartening more than anything else, that these places can’t be safer than that”, Eissinger said. Neither Leland nor Merced County Sheriff Verne Warnke described what the animosity was, which the sheriff also referred to as a “vendetta”. A bomb squad later destroyed the backpack. UC Merced Chancellor Dorothy Leland said she was thankful how quickly the incident was brought under control by campus police and that all of the victims are recovering.