Monday morning dawned on the Ohio State University campus in positive fashion. Students had just returned after visits home for Thanksgiving weekend. And they were still in a celebratory mood from the Buckeyes' football win over rival Michigan on Saturday.
Nothing would have prepared anyone for what had happened by late morning.
A student, Ohio State police say, drove a car into a group of people standing outside a campus building, throwing some into the air and running over others. The driver then jumped from the car with a butcher knife, slashing more people. Less than a minute after the attack, an OSU police officer had shot and killed the man. In the end, 11 people were injured.
The suspect has been identified as Abdul Razak Ali Artan, who was a Logistics Management major in the College of Business at Ohio State. Police said they believe he was 18 years old, though other reports have said he was 20. Records show he lived in western Franklin County, in Franklin Township. Records also show that he graduated with honors, with an associate's degree, from Columbus State Community College in May before transferring this semester to Ohio State.
Police said the officer who shot and killed Artan is Ohio State University Police Officer Alan Horujko, 28, who has been with the police department since January 2015. He wasn't injured.
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Neighbors in the Havenwood Townhome complex just off Georgesville Road, where Artan lived, said police and the sheriff's office bomb squad have been there since shortly before 11 am., not long after the situation on campus unfolded. Police crime-scene tape surrounds the complex and officers reportedly are working with federal officials from the FBI and Homeland Security to search his apartment.
For a time, officials believed a second suspect might be in the Lane Avenue garage, but they
searched it and found no one. They have since said there was only one suspect. Surveillance footage
from cameras on campus showed the suspect's car entering campus at Kenny Road and Woody Hayes
Drive, OSU Police Chief Craig Stone said. Other cameras recorded it on Woodruff Drive and on 19th
Avenue. "We could tell that the suspect was in the car by himself," Stone said.
Andrew Thomas, chief medical officer of Ohio State University's Wexner Medical Center, said
that 11 people were hurt in the incident, two of whom were not transported by ambulance but sought
medical care on their own later. All are expected to survive.
Of five at Wexner, two have stab wounds, two were hit by the car and one has cuts, Thomas
said. One who came later had injuries from the car.
Two more went to OhioHealth Riverside Methodist Hospital, both hit by the car. One has orthopedic injuries and one a skull fracture, Thomas said. At OhioHealth Grant Medical Center, two people were treated for lacerations and one went later with injuries from the car.
One woman was transported to a hospital by a Columbus fire medic with a gunshot wound to her foot, Fire Chief Kevin O'Connor said. Officials haven't yet said how that happened, but the woman told medics she was running from the incident and called for help after reaching a safe place.
Thomas didn't release the names of those injured, but said those at Wexner Medical Center included one faculty member, two graduate students and one undergraduate student. He said those at the OhioHealth hospitals included two undergraduates and two graduate students.
The attack happened outside of Watts Hall, at West 19th Street west of College Road, shortly before 10 a.m. Earlier in the morning, the building had been evacuated because of a report of a gas leak. Authorities now say the report of a leak likely had nothing to do with the attack.
At a news conference, officials said that Horujko had just cleared the scene from the gas-leak
alarm when, at 9:52 a.m., he saw a car strike several pedestrians who had been evacuated into the
courtyard outside. He issued a radio alert that seven to eight pedestrians had been struck.
He said the driver got out of the car with a large knife and began attacking people, and he
ordered the man to drop the knife.
The man refused and, by 9:53 a.m., he had been shot and killed.
Those who knew Artan say they're shocked. Neighbors said his family had immigrated to the Columbus area from Somalia.
Jack Ouham owns the Hometown Market, which is just around the corner from where Artan lived with his family. He said that Artan came in there once or twice a day and had lived in an apartment with his mother and six or seven siblings.
"I don't know what made him act like that," Ouham said. "He don't drink. He don't smoke. He don't use narcotics. They're very nice people."
VIDEO | Multiple witnesses describe attack
Ohio State's student newspaper interviewed Artan in August. During that time, he talked about moving from Columbus State to such a large school, and being Muslim and the importance of prayer.
"This is my first day. This place is huge and I don't even know where to pray," he said. "I wanted to pray in the open, but I was kind of scared with everything going on in the media...I was kind of scared right now. But I just did it. I relied on God. I went to the corner and just prayed."
After the suspect was identified, Ohio State President Dr. Michael Drake said, "What we really want to do is unify together, support each other.
"Let's not jump to conclusions and perhaps create a bad situation where one doesn't exist."
Hakim Ouham said he often visited his uncle at his store and also knew Artan.
"He's the last guy I'd expect," Hakim Ouham said.
Artan also was a frequent customer of the nearby Khyber Restaurant, where he often picked up lamb gyros, said Niaz Siddiqui.
Siddiqui called Artan a "cool guy" who often talked to him about going to college.
Students first learned of a problem when an "active shooter" alert was sent at 9:55 a.m. to the campus community, urging people to hide in place.
"There was a guy who crashed his car into a bunch of people and ran out with a knife chasing down people," the caller told 911 dispatchers.
At 11:30 a.m., the university said the scene was secure and that all classes were canceled for the day. The shelter-in-place order was lifted at 11:14 a.m., but more than a dozen buildings remained closed.
U.S. Rep. Joyce Beatty, a Democrat from Jefferson Township, called the campus emergency-alert
system "life-saving" and praised OSU officials for instituting it. "Those things don't just
happen," she said.
Mayor Andrew J. Ginther said it was "one of those days when you're grateful for good training
and great people." He said police deserve particular credit for handling the incident well in a
climate of contentious relations. "There has never been a more complicated and challenging time to
be a police officer," he said.
Ginther made no reference to Artan's ethnicity or background but said he is proud that
Columbus is "warm and welcoming" to immigrants and refugees. "We welcome people from all over the
world," he said.
Columbus Police, Ohio State police and deputies with the Franklin County Sheriff's Office rushed to the scene. Students took to social media to find information, and posted video and pictures to Twitter of the scene.
Police were searching the area, and there was intense police and SWAT activity at a garage at West Lane Avenue and Tuttle Park Place on campus, just east of St. John Arena. Officers with long guns and two armored vehicles were seen there before the threat was lifted. Apparently, there were no suspects in the garage but students hiding there.
Mike O'Connell, a senior from Dublin, said he did not hear shots, but got the alerts.
"I just had a class over here an hour ago," he said. "This is insane. I've never seen anything like this."
Another student said she was in a business class when she received the emergency alert. She said she could see people running outside.
"We're just staying safe, making sure everyone else is safe," the sophomore said.
Peter Anderson, chairman of the department of materials science and engineering, said he arrived at Watts Hall after the attack was over.
He said students told him that someone called in a fluorine leak in the building, which has lab facilities. As required during emergencies, the students congregated in the courtyard outside the building.
He said the attacker drove a car into the courtyard. “It’s where we hold our ice cream socials and when something like this happens,”Anderson said.
One victim was struck so hard that the person flew into the air and landed on a hard surface.
“It sounds very fortunate that bsed on what I heard, if this is not a life-threatening injury,” Anderson said.
Anderson said one of his colleagues, professor emeritus William Clark, was slashed in his lower leg by the attacker.
Upper Arlington and Grandview schools were locked down for a short time while police investigated the incident.
The Ohio Department of Transportation closed the ramps from northbound Route 315 at Lane Avenue and southbound 315 at Medical Center Drive. Both have reopened.
High Street at Lane Avenue also was closed to westbound traffic.
Facebook released a Safety Check feature for the incident, allowing people in the area to mark themselves as unharmed.
Dispatch Reporters Beth Burger, Bill Bush, Theodore Decker, Mary Mogan Edwards, Ken Gordon, Danae King, Kimball Perry, Earl Rinehart, Lucas Sullivan, Jim Weiker, Alissa Widman Neese, Jim Woods and Holly Zachariah contributed to this story.
Check Dispatch.com for more information as it becomes available.
