Terrorism Suspected in Ohio State Attack
It’s been 24-hours since 18-year-old Abdul Razak Ali Artan rammed his car into a group of people on Ohio State’s campus before exited his car wielding a butcher knife injuring 11 people, within a minute he was shot dead.
Police have searched through surveillance footage, talked to witnesses and have obtained a search warrant to view the Artan’s residence, but they are still looking for any clues that might provide them with information about the motive behind this violent incident.
A motive police still haven’t struck off the list of possibilities is terrorism.
Artan was described by police as a Somali refugee who fled to Pakistan and then took permanent residence in the United States in 2014. He was a transfer student at Ohio State, with the current fall semester being his first on campus.
In an issue of the Ohio State newspaper, The Lantern, Artan was featured in a group of stories about students on campus. In his interview, he talked of how he didn’t have a specific place to pray.
“I just transferred from Columbus State. We had prayer rooms, like actual rooms where we could go pray because we Muslims have to pray five times a day.” Artan said in the interview. ““I wanted to pray in the open, but I was scared with everything going on in the media. I’m a Muslim, it’s not what the media portrays me to be. If people look at me, a Muslim praying, I don’t know what they’re going to think, what’s going to happen. But, I don’t blame them. It’s the media that put that picture in their heads so they’re just going to have it and it, it’s going to make them feel uncomfortable. I was kind of scared right now. But I just did it. I relied on God. I went over to the corner and just prayed.”
Police are looking into a Facebook post made by Artan just minutes before his car was seen in surveillance footage driving towards the scene of the crime. The post reads:
“I can’t take it anymore. America! Stop interfering with other countries, especially the Muslim Ummah. We are not weak. We are not weak, remember that.”
The post also mentions the name Anwar Al-Awlaki, a radical American-born al-Queda cleric whose propaganda has been linked to several domestic terrorist attacks. Antar described him as a “hero.”
“If you want us Muslims to stop carrying lone wolf attacks, then make peace,” the post reads. “We will not let you sleep unless you give peace to the Muslims.”
The page the post was found on has now been disabled, but it has given police and investigators a look into what Antar might have been thinking before the car and knife attack.
See how the day unfolded through emergency alerts and officials’ tweets in this Twitter Moment.