The alarm rang, sending the students and staff members of the engineering buildings and labs streaming into the courtyard and onto the sidewalks of Ohio State University’s north campus to what was supposed to be their safe place.
But it wasn’t.
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As hundreds of students and faculty and staff members hung around West 19th Avenue and Watts Hall waiting for the all-clear, horror came calling on campus at 9:52 a.m., and it came by way of a man in a silver Honda.
Student Martin Schneider first heard an engine rev, and student Angshuman Kapil heard tires screech. Several watched as the Honda jumped the curb, sending bodies flying into the air.
Police would later say the driver careened into that crowd intentionally, no question. Because the suspect — later identified as student Abdul Razak Ali Artan, a logistics-management major of Somali descent — had another weapon besides the car. He clutched a butcher knife.
At first, though, no one knew that. Witnesses said they and dozens of others initially ran toward the car, thinking the driver might be injured in the crash. Student Armand Ghazi had heard the initial screams, so he was one of those who ran to help. But then he saw Artan — whom he described as dazed — jump from the Civic.
“He seemed like a crazed animal,” said Ghazi, a 20-year-old material-sciences engineering major from Cincinnati. “He seemed like he was determined. He seemed like he was there for one reason — to do as much damage as he could.”
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Tanner Sereno, a junior studying welding engineering, also saw Artan jump from the car, swinging and slashing wildly with the knife. When another student walked to the car to help, Sereno said, "the attacker tried to grab his backpack and slash the kid from behind."
Yet Artan didn’t say a word as he attacked, Ghazi said. Ghazi was one of at least 14 people who called 911 and then, like most everyone else, he ran for his life.
Artan took off straight down 19th Avenue, still wielding his blade, but he didn’t get far. OSU Police Officer Alan Horujko — a 28-year-old who has been with the department since January 2015 — confronted Artan and shot and killed him there, west of College Road and near an alley, just a minute later at 9:53 a.m.
A campuswide alert went out at 9:55 a.m. telling everyone to “run hide fight.” OSU President Michael V. Drake said later that the alert was intentionally worded and that it worked — everyone knew that meant it was an active, dangerous situation and they should do exactly as they were trained to do.
"I want to give our thoughts and prayers and hopes and wishes for a speedy recovery to all those who were injured," Drake said during a briefing outside OSU's Wexner Medical Center, where some of the 11 injured students and faculty members had been taken. "We prepare for situations like this but always hope never to have one."
OSU Police Chief Craig Stone said there were immediate rumors and concerns that a second suspect was on the run, perhaps holed up in the nearby Lane Avenue garage. That prompted an ever-widening scene and sent a virtual army of armed SWAT teams and police dogs marching up and down streets and sweeping cars and buildings even farther up campus. No one was found.
And by early afternoon, Stone said he was confident Artan had been the only attacker.
Authorities did not release the names of the injured Monday but Andrew Thomas, chief medical officer of Wexner, said all are expected to survive. Of the 11 people who were hurt, two were not transported by paramedics but sought medical care on their own later.
Of five transported to Wexner, two had stab wounds, two were hit by the car and one had a laceration, Thomas said.
Two more went to OhioHealth Riverside Methodist Hospital, both hit by the car. One had orthopedic injuries and the other had a skull fracture and appeared to be in stable condition, Thomas said. At OhioHealth Grant Medical Center, two people were treated for lacerations, and another went later with injuries from the car. All are expected to survive.
One woman was transported to a hospital by a Columbus fire medic with a gunshot wound to her foot, Fire Chief Kevin O'Connor said. Officials haven't yet said how that happened, but the woman told medics she was running from the incident and called for help after reaching a safe place.
Thomas said those at Wexner included one faculty member, two graduate students and one undergraduate student. He said those at the OhioHealth hospitals included two undergraduates and two graduate students.
One thing that is indisputable is that what happened shocked and stunned an entire campus, something that also had happened a year ago today: It was last Nov. 29 that Dean Sturgis, a disgruntled former security guard, charged into the Wexner Center for the Arts and shot at artwork on the gallery walls.
The center, which had just opened that Sunday morning, was evacuated and shut down. SWAT officers later found Sturgis, 63, dead after he shot himself. No one else was hurt back then.
In this latest round of violence, classes were canceled for the day — they will resume as normal today — and after the shelter-in-place order was lifted at 11:14 a.m. students hugged, cried and walked quickly out of every building, mostly stunned, with their cellphones jammed to their ears or held up in front of their faces as they tried to both assure loved ones they were OK and check on their friends.
The fear, coupled with the carnage left behind, isn’t something the students will soon erase from their minds.
Nicholas Flores was in the Marines and is now a 27-year-old student. He was in class across from the courtyard when he heard one, maybe two gunshots. At the same time, someone ran into the building to tell occupants there was a situation, and the campuswide alert went out.
Flores helped to get students up to the fourth floor of the building — in one of the rare rooms with doors that lock — and then followed his instincts and ran toward the danger, not away.
By the time he got to the courtyard, it was over. Medics tended to the wounded and the shooter was dead.
There was little Flores could do. But talking about it not long after still choked him up.
“I’m a Marine, I just …” he said, pausing. He took a moment, composing himself. He looked around. “Most of these people here on campus are kids. Their parents send them here to be safe and to be educated. It’s sad."
Neighbors of attacker say they're shocked
By late afternoon, Columbus police said they had taken over both investigations: the initial assault and attack on the students as well as the fatal shooting of Artan.
They refused to speculate on a motive, but Columbus Police Chief Kim Jacobs said that Homeland Security, the FBI and state authorities are all involved. No official would call it an act of terror, but no one could rule it out, either. And in two afternoon news conferences, authorities clearly realized that the very nature of the attack — or at the very least the speculation it will breed — could be incendiary.
Artan, was believed to be either 18 or 20 years old (it wasn't clear) and was of Somali descent. Public records show he lived in Franklin Township, and that he graduated with an associate's degree, with honors, from Columbus State Community College in May before transferring this semester to Ohio State's College of Business.
After the suspect was identified, and social-media was quick to jump to conclusions about ethnicity and religion, Drake urged caution and calm: "What we really want to do is unify together, support each other."
Mayor Andrew J. Ginther also made no reference to Artan's ethnicity or background but said he is proud that Columbus is "warm and welcoming" to immigrants and refugees. "We welcome people from all over the world," the mayor said.
The OSU student newspaper, "The Lantern," had randomly interviewed Artan in August as part of its “Humans of Ohio State” series and that also provided some early fodder.
In that interview, Artan told reporter Kevin Stankiewicz that Ohio State is huge, and that, as a Muslim, he was having a hard time figuring out where to do his required prayers several times each day.
“I wanted to pray in the open, but I was kind of 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," Artan went on. "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 prayed."
Neighbors in the Havenwood Townhome complex just off Georgesville Road, where Artan lived, said police and the Franklin County sheriff's office's bomb squad arrived a little before 11 a.m. Monday, not long after the situation on campus unfolded. Late Monday night, police crime-scene tape surrounded the complex and officers were working with federal officials to begin a search of the apartment.
Those who knew Artan say they're shocked. Neighbors said his family had immigrated to the Columbus area from Somalia but they weren't sure how long ago.
Jack Ouham, who owns the Hometown Market, just around the corner from the complex, said Artan lived with his mother and six or seven siblings and that he came into the store at least once every day.
"I don't know what made him act like that," Ouham said of Artan. "He don't drink. He don't smoke. He don't use narcotics. They're very nice people."
Artan also was a frequent customer of the nearby Khyber Restaurant, where he often picked up lamb gyros, said manager Niaz Siddiqui.
Siddiqui said Artan often talked about college. He called him a "cool guy."
Though no officials have speculated on a motive and had, in fact, cautioned against generalizations and assumptions, some of the central Ohio Muslim community gathered at the headquarters for the Center for American-Islamic Relations-Ohio in Dublin Monday night to speak of the attack.
Nichol Ghazi said that when she first heard the news in the morning, she had one reaction: "Don't let it be someone from our community."
Ghazi, of Galena, offered sympathy for the victims and said she wanted the Ohio State community to know that her community stands with them. Her Muslim faith, she said, is not one that encourages violence, and said that Islam preaches,"'If you take one life, it's as if you've taken all of humanity. It's that grievous of a sin."
Abdi Dini, a member of the local Somali community, said his community considers OSU part of their home. "Any twisted minds that would claim such a sickening act of violence is not a part of us."
Police chief: It could have been much worse
As Monday wore on and folks sought a sense of normal, some took time to reflect. Peter Anderson, chairman of the department of materials science and engineering, said he arrived at Watts Hall after the attack was over.
He said the students had evacuated after the initial call of a flourine leak inside the building and congregated just as they were supposed to, right there in the courtyard.
“It’s where we hold our ice-cream socials," he said. But on Monday, it was a crime scene.
Authorities said, as information became clearer through the day, that they were certain the reported gas leak and alarm were not connected, just an apparent coincidence.
Yet Chief Stone of the OSU Police Department, said it was because of the alarm that Officer Horujko was already at the scene, so he was able to confront the suspect immediately and end a situation that all aknowledged could have been much worse.
"Our officer engaged the suspect and ended the threat," Stone said. "We were very fortunate that an OSU police officer was there and took quick action."
There were several candlelight vigils and religious services on campus Monday night to help students and community members find peace, comfort and healing together.
St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church, on Woodruff Avenue just down the street from the attack, welcomed about 40 people at 7 p.m. for an hourlong candlelight, interfaith vigil.
Speakers read Scripture passages and said prayers. Some attendees shared smiles. Others grieved.
The Rev. Karl Stephens, the church’s director of campus ministry, said he hoped all who attended found hope in unity.
“During this time of such fear and shock, we need to support and unite our community," Stephens said. “When a burden is borne, it’s better to be borne together than alone."
Dispatch Reporters Beth Burger, Bill Bush, Theodore Decker, Mary Mogan Edwards, Ken Gordon, Danae King, Earl Rinehart, Lucas Sullivan, Jim Weiker and Alissa Widman Neese, and the Canton Repository contributed to this story.
