@zombie
COLUMBUS—An attack at Ohio State University on Monday morning left at least 11 people injured—all of whom are expected to recover—after a Somali-born U.S. resident and OSU student struck them with his car and slashed them with a knife.
The attack began at approximately 9:52 a.m., director of public service Monica Moll said at an afternoon press conference. Abdul Razak Ali Artan aimed his Honda Civic at a group of pedestrians, jumping the curb and colliding with them. He then exited the vehicle and began slashing pedestrians. By 9:53 a.m., less than a minute later, responding officer Alan Horujko had shot and killed Artan, who police say appears to have acted alone.
University police sent text message alerts and tweeted about 10 a.m. for students to “run, hide, fight,” a common mantra printed on safety pamphlets for evading an active shooter.
Nicole Renninger was in a computer lab when she heard what at first she thought were construction noises and saw people running outside the window. Later, she figured they must have been gunshots, possibly from the police officer who shot and killed Artan. Renninger stayed in the room with one person after receiving alerts to take cover, hiding in a corner where they couldn’t be seen from the outside.
“I spent most of the time texting” family and friends, Renninger said, letting them know she was safe, before the alerts were lifted at about 11 a.m. All classes were canceled for the day for the campus’s 60,000 enrolled students.
“We’re one of the biggest campuses in the country. It’s not unreasonable to think something like this would happen,” said OSU student Dan Zubenko, who had just left a class nearby on north campus when he received the alert and locked himself in an office with about a half dozen other people, all of them checking the news and social media.
In an interview with the Ohio State student newspaper in August, Artan described himself as a pious and scared Muslim.
“I wanted to pray in the open, but I was scared with everything going on in the media,” the logistics management student told The Lantern after transferring from Columbus State Community College.
“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 so they’re going to just have it and it, it’s going to make them feel uncomfortable. I was kind of scared right now. But I just did it. I relied on God. I went over to the corner and just prayed.”
