A male college student burst into a morning class at a California university with a hunting knife Wednesday and may have killed his intended victim if not for the heroic intervention of a construction worker who ran into the room to break up the attack.
The construction worker and three others were injured, but all are expected to survive. The alleged assailant, described as a college student in his 20s, was shot and killed by campus police as he fled the scene at the University of California, Merced.
Two of the injured had to be airlifted to nearby hospitals, and the other two were treated on campus. Authorities didn’t release the name of the assailant or his victims.
The incident began when the assailant used a knife to stab two people in a second-floor room around the start of an 8 a.m. class, Merced County Sheriff Vern Warnke said.
A construction worker outside rushed into to check on the commotion, distracted the attacker and was also stabbed. Warnke credited the worker with saving the life of one of the victims.
“I think he prevented this first student from dying,” Warnke said during an afternoon news conference. “He didn’t go in knowing that there was a stabbing taking place. He went in thinking there was a fight.”
The Merced Sun Star identified the construction worker as Byron Price, 31. Price’s father said he was treated and released from the hospital. Neither Price returned calls for comment to The Associated Press.
Warnke said the suspect fled the room after attacking the construction worker and ran down two flights of stairs to outside where he stabbed a school employee sitting on a bench. The suspect fled the building. He was shot and killed by pursuing campus police on a nearby foot bridge.
Authorities are investigating a motive. Warnke said the knife contained a blade that was eight to 10 inches long.
All the victims were conscious when paramedics reached them, Assistant Vice Chancellor Patti Waid said.
University senior Phil Coba, a student government representative, said numerous students told him that the stabbings started inside a classroom and continued outside before campus police shot and killed the attacker.
Lensy Maravilla, 19, a first-year student, said she was in a biology class on the second floor of the same building, when a female student ran in.
Maravilla said the student “was crying hysterically and came in and said that she had seen somebody get stabbed, or slashed, in the throat and she ran.”
Maravilla did not have other details, but she said that shortly afterward someone came in the class and said classes were canceled.
Student Itzel Franco, 18, said half of her dorm remains evacuated because it is close to the site of where the assailant was shot. She said it happened in an area known as the “passing bridge.”
Student Alex Lopez was heading to class when he realized something was wrong on campus. “I was listening to a podcast, and there was a break in talking, and I just hear a gunshot,” he said.
He said police and first responders flooded the scene.
“You see this stuff all over the news and stuff, and you see it happen to all these other schools,” but you don’t expect it to happen at your school, said Lopez, 21.
The university about 120 miles south of Sacramento in the farm-rich San Joaquin Valley was locked down for about an hour and a half after the stabbings. The lockdown was lifted, but classes were canceled and entrances to the campus were blocked off.
Campus officials said the university, which has about 6,000 students, also would be closed Thursday and urged the community to seek counseling services that were available.
The campus in the city of Merced opened a decade ago and is the newest one in the University of California system.
It was erected in the state’s farm belt in response to the burgeoning enrollment in the nine other University of California campuses. Regents also felt the mainly agricultural region was unrepresented by higher education.
The Associated Press contributed to this article.
At least the police made sure this guy will never stab someone again.
Will bthe progressives want to ban knives next?Yes,wait for it
There are already bans on knives with blades longer than 6 inches in some locales, Michael. But, I for one, am glad that campus police had GUNS. Likely the young man was depressed / mentally disturbed. What is the untold story about all of these attacks is the connection between them and anti-depressants (specifically SSRIs–introduced in the 1980s). Drug companies profit mightily on the widespread administration of these drugs but they have known, almost from their first use, that about 5% of the people on them will experience “psychotic breaks”. In males, that often results in violence. Big Pharma through their bribery to the mainstream media (ever notice how many drug commercials on news programming?) and their threats of lawsuits, if anyone in the media dares to tell the truth are able to suppress the truth. The facts are that NEARLY EVERY violent attacker has a history of SSRI use. SSRI stands for Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor and there is some research evidence that it is that action, in particular, that is responsible for the “psychotic break” that occurs when the neurotransmitter, serotonin (which functions as a neurotransmitter in the brain) goes too high. Those who have lost relatives to these kinds of attacks should get together and launch a class-action suit against the pharmaceutical giants who believe it is enough to just warn clinicians (in the package inserts) that these drugs can be associated with suicide or violent acts. That is the “dirty secret” behind these drugs that most police investigators understand–but few are willing to talk about it. Every time the subject is raised–especially in online forums–there are loud (and often) abusive posts raised by others. One suspects that they are shills paid by Big Pharma corps. to “influence online opinion”. It is known that Big Pharma signs up with P.R. firms who will pay for each comment defending Big Pharma’s brain poisons. “Follow the money, honey.”
because like the perp, they are mentally ill.
Note that this article by the AP did not mention that the assailant was a Muslim. And of course, the shooting at Fr. Hood was just, according to Bathhouse Barry, an act of workplace violence–by another Muslim. There are many other such acts of violence by this “peaceful” so called religion. Just watch ISIS in action. It is a murderous cult, not a religion. False God. There are, according to many analysts, over a hundred passages in the Qur’an dictating the murder or conversions of non-Muslims. This is a peaceful “religion?” NOT!!!
doesn’t TAKE guns to make a massive attack on unarmed students does it moron gun grabbers. If you kept your nut cases in a padded cell this would not happen. The perp is a registered democrat ISN”T he! Yeah, caught ya!
Since our economy is based on “GREED”-why blame one of thousands-who are following the money-honey.Yes-Big Pharma is one of those companies-JM
This could be the opening salvo in a series of lone wolf attacks inspired by various Islamic/Muslim men copying the attacks with knives being perpetrated in Israel. All this nonsense is based on some vague religious nonsense by the Islamic world that once a piece of land, any land, is owned by Islam, then that land is forever Islam. So the Israelis who now occupy Israel who really owned this land thousands of years before the Muslim are “occupiers.” of Muslim land. The fact that the Jews owned this land thousand of years before, does not matter to a murdering Muslim. But these Muslims never give up, no matter how silly, untrue, murderous, or crazy they act. Muslim will never relent. They do not care about life, truth, common sense, reality, or anything else, only Allah. This takes religion to its illogical conclusion. These are Obama’s people. The United States supports Palestinians with large amounts of aid so that they can terrorize Israelis. It is a wonderful system, supported by the Congress. We are going to see more knife attacks in the United States and world-wide.
You have a message above that the media neglected to mention that the perpetrator of the knife attack on the University of California campus was a Muslim. You feature all kinds of messages on Islamic terrorist attacks, but you somehow do not like the truth and have perpetrated a violation of my freedom of speech. Your “political correctness” will get us all killed. When the United States gets attacked by Iran you might change your mind. In Britain in 1940, they did not ban negative statements about Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany. You are a traitor to the United States.
I’m surprised the campus police are allowed to have weapons. See how that works.