Abdul Razak Ali Artan, 18

Columbus, Ohio
November 28, 2016

Agencies: Ohio State University Police - Department of Public Safety Ohio

Cause of death: Shooting

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Last updated: almost 6 years ago

Overview

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.”

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.