This past Monday, the Ohio State University witnessed a horrible senseless act performed by one of their students. Eighteen year-old Abdul Razak Ali Artan plowed his car into a crowd of students and began stabbing several people with a butcher knife. Eleven people were hurt, one critically. A little while before the attack, Artan posted on his Facebook page telling Americans “to stop interfering with other countries, especially the Muslim Ummah.”
Artan was also a student at the Ohio State University, and school officials say that on his first day on campus he told them that he was scared to pray in public at OSU. Why did this senseless act occur, and did the police of the Ohio State campus do a good job of limiting the injury of students? While ISIS has urged sympathizers online to carry out “lone-wolf” attacks in their home countries with whatever weapons are available to them, it is unclear at this time if Artan had any direct ties to ISIS.
Alan Harujko, a two-year member of the Ohio State campus police was identified as the one who took down Artan and most likely saved more student lives on campus. Harjuko shot him after he saw the man with a butcher knife in hand. He told Artan to put the knife down or he would shoot, and when he did not put it down, he shot him.
During this time of the attack, the campus was on lockdown for approximately 90 minutes when the university first reported an “active shooter” on the campus. The students were told to run, hide, and fight. From the classroom windows, which were covered with blinds, to the dorm rooms students were in, they were frightened. Students were also alerted on their phones, as a student in a Geographical Information Systems class was alerted during the course.