UC Merced Stabbing Suspect Motivated By ‘Personal Animosity:’ Chancellor

The University of California Merced stabbing suspect that terrorized the California university campus Wednesday during a knife-wielding stabbing rampage before being shot dead had several more sinister plans on his murderous agenda. An assailant stabbed five people as students headed to class at the rural university campus in central California before police shot and killed him, authorities said.

The construction worker and three others were injured, but all are expected to survive.

“Our first concern is for (the victims’) full recovery”, Chancellor Dorothy Leland said.

A two-page manifesto found on the body of a stabbing suspect described an elaborate plan that never came to fruition, sheriff’s detectives said on Thursday.

Police say Wednesday morning Mohammad burst into one of his classrooms with a hunting knife.

Charles Nies, the university’s vice chancellor of student affairs, said families of the victims are reeling from the attack, which rattled the close-knit community.

“Those two minutes that happened yesterday don’t define us as an institution”, he said.

“His plan went haywire because people caught back”, said Sheriff Warnke.

The two students, a contractor and a student adviser that was stabbed are expected to recover, officials said.

Detectives said Mohammed was mad after being kicked out of a student group meeting. “We don’t know what he was going to do with it. We don’t know what his intentions were”.

The sheriff says there were parts of the manifesto note that included stopping to praise Allah, but the sheriff emphasized this was not an act of terrorism. The backpack, he said, was neutralized by a law enforcement bomb squad.

He had planned to hold students hostage by using the plastic ties to bind their hands to their desks during class on Wednesday morning.

“It was like the “Scream” movie, holding the knife over his head”, Price said.

“He also looked like he was having fun”, Price told the Merced Sun Star.

Mohammad fled the room and stabbed two others- one in a stairway, the other on bench outside- before police shot him on a nearby pedestrian bridge.

In his backpack Mohammad carried two clear bags containing petroleum jelly, a night-vision scope, zip ties, a safety hammer, two rolls of duct tape and separate small pieces of duct tape.

“Petroleum jelly could be used as an explosive – a poor man’s C4”, Warnke said.

The Federal Bureau of Investigations and U.S. Department of Homeland Security are involved in the investigation. “There was zero radar on this fellow”. Meghan Christopherson is a freshman at UC Merced.

“He was quiet, but he was really friendly”, Ish Patel said. He was intelligent, too – he performed well academically.

But a high school friend of Mohammad says he was a great guy who loved playing video games and going to the mosque. He lost contact with Mohammad after they graduated.

Regardless, the stabbing attack was terrifying and disturbing on many levels, with Mohammad, who his roommate called “anti-social”, described as looking like he was enjoying himself as he cut the throat of the first student victim in a UC Merced classroom.

He said: ‘He didn’t talk much. And I never saw him walk with anybody.

“Every time I would try and say something, he would just ignore it”, Velasquez told local KFSN.