COLUMBUS, OHIO, US: A university student, reportedly of Somali descent, rammed his car Monday into a crowd of people at Ohio State University and attacked them with a butcher knife, injuring 11 before police fatally shot him.
Identifying the assailant as Abdul Razak Ali Artan, officials in the northern US state said he appeared to have acted alone in what was being investigated as a possible terror attack.
But officials said they so far had no indication of a motive, and Ohio State president Michael Drake cautioned against jumping to conclusions when asked about a possible connection to the Somali community.
“We all know when things like this happen that there’s a tendency sometimes for people to put people together and create other kinds of theories,” he told a news conference.
“We don’t know anything that would link this to any community. We certainly don’t have any evidence that would say that’s the case,” Drake added.
The whole incident lasted just a few minutes — from the car careening into the crowd until the suspect was shot dead — but triggered a tense lockdown on the university’s main campus in Columbus, with panicked students hiding in bathrooms before the scene was declared secure.
Officials said 11 people were being treated at local hospitals for stabbing wounds and injuries from the motor vehicle, but none of their injuries were life threatening.
