Merced County Sheriff Vern Warnke named the suspect as 18-year-old
Faisal Mohammad, a freshman majoring in engineering and computer
science. Warnke told a news conference that the Wednesday attack
started in a classroom and evidence suggested it was personal.
A two-page "manifesto" in Mohammad's pocket during an autopsy listed
a specific target he planned to attack for removing him from a study
group, Warnke told reporters, adding he had scripted the attack
events, listing details of action and lines he planned to say.
Mohammad intended to tie students up with plastic zip-tie handcuffs
and wait for a police officer to enter by a door where petroleum
jelly would be on the floor to make the entrance slippery. He would
ambush and stab the officer, steal a gun and start shooting
students, Warnke said.
"He had a pretty elaborate idea of what he wanted to do," Warnke
said, explaining he was upset because he got kicked out of a study
group.
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2015/Nov/06/images/ads/current/graue_sda_june2015.png) Mohammad was a dormitory resident at UC Merced, according to
officials at the campus of some 6,600 students in California's
Central Valley, and he was from Santa Clara, 45 miles (70 km)
southeast of San Francisco.
The attack, which sent two students, a university employee and a
construction worker to the hospital with stab wounds, is under
investigation by campus police, the sheriff's office and the FBI,
the university said.
None of the injuries were life-threatening, it said.
Warnke said Mohammad was carrying plastic zip-tie handcuffs, a
hammer, duct tape, a night-vision scope and two bags of petroleum
jelly in a backpack. A bomb squad later destroyed the backpack.
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Officials said that minutes after walking into his second-story
classroom on Wednesday morning, Mohammad attacked another student
with a knife.
A construction worker in the building heard the struggle and rushed
into the class, and was also stabbed before the assailant fled,
officials said. Warnke said the worker's actions probably saved the
life of the first victim.
Outside the building, Mohammad encountered an academic adviser and
stabbed her before stabbing another student. He was shot dead by
campus police after a foot chase.
"His plan went haywire because people fought back," Warnke said.
About a month, a gunman at a college in Oregon killed nine people
and himself in the deadliest of dozens of U.S. mass shootings over
the past two years.
(Reporting by Curtis Skinner from New York; Additional reporting by
Jon Herskovitz; Editing by Steve Gorman, Mohammad Zargham and Ken
Wills)
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