Ohio State University Says Student Carried Out Attack Suspect is identified as a student, Abdul Razak Ali Artan By Melissa Korn, Kris Maher and Pervaiz Shallwani
http://www.wsj.com/articles/ohio-state-university-reports-active-shooter-on-campus-1480347704
COLUMBUS, Ohio—At least 11 people were injured Monday at Ohio State University after a student allegedly jumped a curb in a motor vehicle, then slashed pedestrians with a butcher knife before he was shot and killed.
Officials identified the suspect as Abdul Razak Ali Artan, who was listed in the student directory as a logistics-management major at the business school. Officials didn’t provide a motive for the attack and couldn’t confirm his exact age.
Those injured in the attack were taken to Columbus-area hospitals to be treated for stab wounds and motor-vehicle injuries, as well as other injuries still being assessed. At least two victims have come out of surgery, said officials at Ohio State’s Wexner Medical Center, where six of the victims were sent. Most of those injured were students, officials said.
“We all live with the fear that things like this could happen to us,” Ohio State President Michael Drake said at a news conference outside the hospital Monday afternoon. “We live in an unstable world.”
Officials said the suspect intentionally drove a vehicle over a curb to hit a number of pedestrians before jumping out of the car with a knife. A campus police officer arrived within a minute and shot and killed the suspect when he failed to comply with the officer’s commands, the officials said.
“The first responders did a remarkable job,” Ohio Governor John Kasich said at a press conference Monday afternoon. “It shows how much practice, how much training, how much expertise and how much coordination existed with campus police, Columbus police” and other agencies, he said.
The car struck seven or eight pedestrians at approximately 9:52 a.m. ET, according to Ohio State Director of Public Safety Monica Moll, and an officer had engaged with the suspect within a minute. The school’s alert system sent out its first message at 9:55 a.m. ET.
Police have recovered the knife used in the attack and were processing the scene.
There were initial reports of a possible second attacker, but police were unable to find a second suspect after searching a parking complex. Mr. Drake credited Ohio State’s police with limiting the number of injuries by arriving on the scene quickly and shooting and killing the suspect.
Officials said that an extensive camera system on campus allowed them to track the car before it rammed into the pedestrians, and they could confirm that Mr. Artan was alone in the vehicle.
Mr. Artan was quoted in an August “Humans of Ohio State” feature in The Lantern, the school’s student newspaper, that he was “kind of scared” to pray publicly because of media coverage of his religion. “I’m a Muslim, it’s not what the media portrays me to be. If people look at me, a Muslim praying, I don’t know what they’re going to think, what’s going to happen. But, I don’t blame them. It’s the media that put that picture in their heads,” he said.
Mr. Artan transferred to Ohio State after receiving his associate degree at Columbus State Community College in the spring. Columbus State spokesman Allen Kraus said Mr. Artan graduated cum laude and had no record of behavioral or disciplinary issues during his time there.
Colleges have beefed up their security plans over the past decade, in large part as a response to the mass shooting at Virginia Tech in 2007 and subsequent changes to federal crime-reporting guidelines for institutions of higher education.
Campuses are required to provide timely warnings of ongoing threats and emergencies and must test their alert systems at least once a year.
According to Ohio State’s annual security report, the university reported seven incidents of aggravated assault on campus in 2015 and six in 2014.
Alison Kiss, executive director of the Clery Center for Security on Campus, said many schools offer safety training during student orientation and throughout the year.
“We’ve seen campuses build pretty robust response systems to situations that could be a threat,” she said, including alerting the community via multiple outlets like social media, text messages and school websites.
“From what we’ve seen, it appears that Ohio State was prepared,” Ms. Kiss said.
The incident at first was believed to be a shooting. Ohio State, which has nearly 60,000 students at its main campus in Columbus, issued an emergency alert shortly before 10 a.m. EST about a gunman in or near Watts Hall, which is a materials science and engineering building. The school’s main website also flashed the message, and subsequent updates encouraged students and staff to stay put and follow police directions.
But officials later on Monday said there wasn’t any indication of a firearm being used by the suspect.
The security alert sent by the school included the instructions, “Run Hide Fight,” which are the three steps that security officials recommend as a response to an active shooter. If possible, individuals should escape. If they can’t run away, they should hide. And if they can’t hide, and only if their lives are in imminent danger, they are encouraged to fight, incapacitating a shooter and acting with physical aggression, according to a notice published by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
School officials said that a number of people on campus have gone through active-shooter training and knew how to respond to the “Run Hide Fight” instruction.
The program, which now serves as national protocol for active-shooter situations and is taught at universities and workplaces, gained popularity thanks to a 2012 safety-training video created by the city of Houston, with funding from the Department of Homeland Security. The city produced the video in the aftermath of the movie-theater shooting in Aurora, Colo., in July 2012.
Though critics say the advice to run could cause chaos, and that bystanders may not be equipped to fight an armed attacker, institutions including Indiana University, Butler University and Ohio State offer guidance on the approach on their websites or in training sessions.
The mood on the campus was subdued by Monday afternoon. With classes canceled for the rest of the day, few students walked across the quads of the sprawling university that sits in the state capital. CONTINUE AT SITE
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