Police Identify 18 Year Old Muslim Somali Refugee as Person Behind Ohio State Terror Attack This Morning

A Muslim man plowed his car into a crowd on the Ohio State University campus, then jumped out and started stabbing people with a butcher knife before being shot dead by police Monday morning, officials said.

BREAKING UPDATE 3:52PM EST: Law enforcement officials told NBC News the suspect’s name is Abdul Artan, an 18-year-old student at the university. He was a Somali refugee who left his homeland with his family in 2007, lived in Pakistan and then came to the United States in 2014 as a legal permanent resident of the United States, officials said. The motive was unknown, but officials said the attack was clearly deliberate and may have been planned in advance. “This was done on purpose,” Stone said.

Nine people were taken to hospitals after the ambush, and one was in critical condition. The incident was initially reported as an “active shooter” situation, but the suspect did not shoot anyone. A police officer was on the scene within a minute and killed the assailant. “He engaged the suspect and eliminated the threat,” OSU Police Chief Craig Stone said.

The suspect’s name was not released, but law enforcement officials told NBC News he was a Somali refugee who was a legal permanent resident of the United States.

The motive was unknown, but officials said the attack was clearly deliberate and may have been planned in advance.

“This was done on purpose,” Stone said.

A campus lockdown was lifted about 11:30 a.m., some 90 minutes after the violence unfolded on the Columbus, Ohio, campus, where 60,000 students are enrolled.

UPDATE: A 20-year-old Somali man is the suspect in the Ohio State University attack https://t.co/G7ANHT8lbn pic.twitter.com/kdOzF7aWiV

— CBS News (@CBSNews) November 28, 2016

“This car just swerved and ran into a whole group of people,” said Nicole Kreinbrink, who was walking down the street when she saw the car hit people who had evacuated an academic building during a fire alarm.

“All these people were running and screaming and yelling,” she added.

Jacob Bowers, an OSU sophomore, was sitting on a bench about 100 feet away when he noticed people running.

“Then I heard someone yell, ‘He’s got a knife.’ And I saw a guy with a big-ass knife just chasing people around. When I saw that, I grabbed all my stuff and started running,” Bowers said.

Bowers said he looked back to see a police officer on the scene. The officer yelled to the suspect, “Drop it and get down or I’ll shoot,” and then fired on the suspect, Bowers said. “The man was going insane,” he said.

An 18-year-old Muslim Somali man was behind an attack involving a car and butcher knife on the campus of Ohio State University Monday that left nine people injured, law enforcement sources told Fox News.

Another student told NBC News he heard gunfire from his dorm room.

“I heard gunshots from my dorm, probably six or seven,” said Stephen Yunker, 18, a freshman who lives two blocks from Watts Hall, where the incident occurred.

He said he and his roommate looked at each other, heard sirens about five seconds later, and then looked out the window.

“We saw fire trucks, couple of cars, and a body laying on the ground,” he said.

The Columbus Fire Department said it transported 10 people to hospitals; nine were in stable condition and one was in critical condition.

The campus was put on lockdown for 90 minutes after the university first reported an “active shooter” in the chaos of the moment.

“Run Hide Fight,” the university’s emergency management office tweeted. “Continue to shelter in place.” Students hunkered down in classrooms with shades drawn across the 2,000-acre campus. source

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