Suspected OSU attacker Abdul Artan was profiled in school newspaper's 'Humans of Ohio State'
The man suspected of driving his car into a crowd of Ohio State University students before attacking them with a butcher knife was recently profiled in the school newspaper's "Humans of Ohio State" feature.
The suspect was identified by campus police in a press conference Monday afternoon as Abdul Razak Ali Artan. Artan was a Somali refugee who came to the US legally with his parents in 2014 after living in Pakistan for seven years, according to law enforcement officials cited by NBC News.
See images from the scene:
The Lantern, Ohio State University's student newspaper, appears to have profiled Artan on his first day at OSU in August 2016. Artan told the paper that he had just transferred from Columbus State Community College, and that as a practicing Muslim he "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," he said, according to a print edition of the publication posted online.
He continued:
"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 going to just 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."
A Columbus State Community College spokesman told Vice News that Artan had just transferred to OSU from the college and had no disciplinary issues while he was a student there.
Artan was fatally shot by campus police officer Alan Horujko on Monday morning, OSU police said.
NBC initially reported that Artan was 18, but The Lantern article says he was in his third year of a logistics management degree. Police said they are working to confirm his age.
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