The 18-year-old freshman who stabbed four people at University of California, Merced, was apparently motivated by a personal vendetta and not any terrorist or political agenda, authorities said Thursday.
Faisal Mohammad, a computer science and engineer major from Santa Clara, California, began stabbing people Wednesday morning in a freshman general education class in which he was enrolled, said Chancellor Dorothy Leland.
Mohammad “appeared to have been motivated by personal animosities, not a political agenda,” the chancellor said.
The first person stabbed was a classmate, but Leland said authorities didn’t have any more information Thursday to better explain a motive. Mohammad and the first victim were also in study groups together.
“Based on the evidence gathered so far, which include the crime scene and the suspect’s campus dormitory room, we have no reason to believe that this was in any way related to terrorism,” Leland told reporters.
“At this point, it would be irresponsible to draw such conclusions based solely on the ethnicity of the suspect,” Leland said, without specifically identifying Mohammad’s ethnicity.
What was in his backpack
Twenty FBI agents assisted local authorities in the investigation into why Mohammad stabbed two students, one staff member, and a construction worker shortly before 8 a.m. Wednesday as classes began, said Merced County Sheriff Vern Warnke.
“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 is nothing to indicate that there is any political or religious motivation pertaining to what he did yesterday,” Warnke said.
Mohammad apparently “had far greater intentions to do harm” because his backpack contained zip-tie handcuffs, two clear bags of petroleum jelly, a night vision scope, a safety hammer to break windows, and two rolls of duct tape, the sheriff said.
Bomb squad experts call petroleum jelly “a poor man’s C4,” which is a military-grade explosive, the sheriff said. The jelly can be lit afire and thrown, he said.
“I don’t know what his intentions were, but I don’t think it was very nice,” the sheriff said.
Authorities found a hand-written list of items that matched the materials found in the backpack, the sheriff said.
Investigators, who continued their work Thursday, also spoke with the student’s parents, who live in the Santa Clara area, the sheriff said.
Federal agencies continued to assist in the investigation.
“There was absolutely nothing they could find that would indicate he was doing anything other than being a college student at UC Merced,” Warnke said. “There was zero radar on this fellow.”
Roommate’s description
Andrew Velasquez is one of three UC Merced students who shared a dorm suite with Mohammad, and he described his roommate as someone who “didn’t talk much,” Velasquez told CNN affiliate KFSN.
“Every time I would try to say something, he seemed like he’d just ignore it,” Velasquez told the station.
“I never saw him walk with anybody” to class, he said.
About Mohammad having been the attacker, Velasquez said: “Why would someone want to do that? I just didn’t expect it to be him.”
Shortly after Wednesday’s stabbing, investigators entered Velasquez’s dorm room and asked him to leave, the student said.
A Fresno County bomb squad is testing a substance found in Mohammad’s backpack, authorities said.
As of Thursday morning, one of the student victims remained hospitalized, but is expected to recover, the school said.
The staff member suffered a collapsed lung and had surgery, the school said.
The construction worker and other student victim were treated and released Wednesday, the school said.
The campus, located 130 miles southeast of San Francisco, is scheduled to reopen Thursday afternoon so that faculty and staff can access their offices, except the Classroom and Office Building where the stabbings began, school officials said.
Classes, however, remain canceled Thursday and will resume Friday.
Authorities have not released a motive in the stabbing, and it’s not known what relationship, if any, existed between the assailant and the victims, said James Leonard, a school spokesman.
Mohammad, who lived on campus, entered a classroom in the Classroom and Office Building at about 8 a.m. carrying a hunting knife with an 8-inch to 10-inch blade and stabbed one of the students, authorities said.
The construction worker, thinking it was a fight, went into the classroom and “ended up stumbling upon the stabbing in progress. I think, through his actions, that he ended up saving this student’s life,” Sheriff Warnke said Wednesday.
Outside the classroom, the suspect attacked a female staff member and slightly injured the second student, Warnke said.
The suspect fled the building and was chased by two police officers, said UC Merced Police Chief Al Vasquez.
“When the suspect turned toward the officer, an officer-involved shooting occurred and the suspect succumbed to his injuries,” Vasquez said.
Warnke said the bomb squad was called as a precaution because the suspect carried a backpack.
“Events like this happen elsewhere, but not at UC Merced, which may be still small in student body but large in its sense of community — yet, it has happened,” Chancellor Leland said in a statement on the school webpage. She said the injuries to stabbing victims were not believed to be life-threatening.
UC Merced, which opened September 5, 2005, is the newest campus in the University of California system and is situated near Yosemite National Park.