Faisal Mohammad: Authorities Say Stabbings at UC-Merced Not Terrorism

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The knife-wielding student who stabbed four people Wednesday before being shot by police at the University of California-Merced was not acting on a political motive, officials say. Faisal Mohammad, 18, was pursuing a personal vendetta against fellow students who had excluded him from a study group, according to authorities:

The California student who went on a stabbing rampage before being shot dead by police had planned to kill a police officer, steal a gun and shoot the classmates who had kicked him out of a study group.
Faisal Mohammad, 18, a freshman who majored in computer science and engineering at the University of California, Merced, stabbed four people on Wednesday.
But the teenager, of Santa Clara, California, ‘had far greater intentions to do damage’, Merced County Sheriff Vern Warnke said.
According to a two-page manifesto found stuffed in his pocket during an autopsy on Thursday, Mohammad had a detailed plan of revenge for the students who had expelled him from their group.
Mohammad had been carrying two plastic baggies of highly flammable petroleum jelly, ziptie handcuffs, night vision goggles, duct tape and a hammer in his backpack when he was shot in the back by officers.
He had planned to hold students hostage by using the plastic ties to bind their hands to their desks during class on Wednesday morning.
hen, he planned to call police with a fake distress call, ambush the responding officers and take their guns.
He intended to squirt the petroleum jelly on the floor to create a slippery surface for anyone entering the classroom.
But his attack on the class was foiled almost immediately and the four people he stabbed with a hunting knife — two students, a staff member and a building contractor — are all expected to recover.
Sheriff Warnke said the document written by Mohammad discussed his expulsion from the study group and listed the students he sought to harm as well as other violent musings.
Warnke added that although Mohammad made several references to ‘Allah’, he does not believe the attack was connected to religion or terrorism.
Earlier on Thursday, UC Merced Chancellor Dorothy Leland said the attacks were motivated by ‘personal animosities’ and a ‘vendetta’, not a political agenda. . . .
The student, described as ‘anti-social’ by his roommate, was ‘having fun’, one victim said, as he slashed the first student in the throat inside a classroom.
When construction worker Byron Price, 31, heard the commotion and intervened, he was stabbed in his left side by Mohammad as he tried to stop the attack.
‘He had a smile on his face, he was having fun — which is more what bothers me,’ Price told CBSFresno.
Sheriff Vern Warnke said that Price’s entrance into the classroom likely prevented the death of the first victim who was attacked.

Despite official statements that Mohammad’s attack was motivated by personal grievances, several commentators — including Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer — noted the resemblance between the UC-Merced violence and a recent series of knife attacks by Palestinian terrorists against Jews in Israel:

The Twitter account on which the attack was praised appears to be one of thousands that regularly reference ISIS, according to Terrorism Research & Analysis Consortium (TRAC), which translated the message. Veryan Khan, of TRAC, which monitors ISIS and other groups on social media, said ISIS mounted a call for stabbings on Oct. 18, with the release 19 videos, but could not say what motivated Wednesday’s attack.
“Over the past three days, the Islamic State has released nineteen videos encouraging Palestinians stabbing attacks on Israel,” Khan said. “The media campaign coincides with a wave of renewed violence between Israel and Palestine, after a wave of seemingly lone wolf attacks by Palestinians targeting Israelis.”

Determining the motive of a “lone wolf” terrorist could be difficult. Even if Mohammad himself declared his actions to be a matter of personal revenge, it may be that his antisocial attitude — the moody loner fantasizing about violent reprisals against those he felt had wronged him — could reflect the cultural alienation of a young Muslim man unable to adapt to secular Western society. Speculation about such factors, which liberals would condemn as “Islamophobia” when regarding Muslim criminals, is commonplace when violence is committed by persons whose background and choice of targets could be interpreted as suggesting a “right-wing” political motivation. If the UC-Merced attack had been perpetrated by a white Christian male who praised God in his “manifesto,” liberals would be quick to claim that this was right-wing violence inspired by talk radio, Fox News or Republican politicians.

The difference between (a) legitimately trying to understand the motives of attackers, and (b) trying to score political points for partisan advantage, is one we should always keep in mind when we see how the liberal media pick and choose which violent incidents to give saturation coverage, and how that coverage presents the “moral of the story.”

Too many journalists view the news as a series of opportunities to indulge in didacticism, intended to teach the news consumer liberal political lessons. This attitude means that events which don’t fit the liberal narrative are treated as “local news” of no national significance, whereas events that lend themselves to a liberal interpretation are highlighted, given in-depth coverage and made a focus of commentary by “experts” and pundits. Conservative criticism of media bias should be aimed at exposing to public scrutiny the falsehoods and distortions created by the political prejudices that prevail in the news industry.

People must have access to every fact in order to be able to form accurate judgments, and media bias tends to deprive people of facts that would lead people to question the liberal worldview. Once people realize that the media are attempting to deceive them, and that this attempted deception has political motives — e.g., to enhance the electoral success of the Democrat Party — then they begin to view media skeptically, to question the accuracy of what is reported, to seek out facts that are overlooked by the liberal media. There is a difference between skepticism and paranoia, of course, but once we realize that the partisan tilt in America’s newsrooms favors Democrat over Republicans by a factor of at least 4-to-1, there is never thereafter a moment when we can entirely trust the media to tell us the whole truth.

Rush Limbaugh: The Conservative-Media
Revolution Has Forced the Liberal Media
to Abandon Any Pretense of Objectivity

Limbaugh’s point is that in the past 30 years, under pressure from conservative critics, allegedly “objective” journalists have been unable to maintain their pretense of neutrality. The biased reporters, editors and producers at major news organizations like NBC, ABC, the Associated Press and the New York Times are no longer able to imagine that they are doing anything else than performing as cheerleaders for the Democrat Party. They cannot pretend to be anything other than partisan propagandists and, knowing that their readers and viewers are aware of their dishonesty, these journalists must either drop the mask of “objectivity” or else lose whatever self-respect they ever had.





 

78 comments

  2. He clearly had no easy access to a gun if his plan was to kill a cop to take a gun.
    California gun control laws work.

  4. A young Muslim co-worker once explained to me that the “7-7” terrorist attacks in London were done because Londoners don’t serve Indians in restaurants because they smell bad. Then again, he believes that radios work because there are little people inside who talk, sing, play instruments . . .

    A liberal would rather pop a gut than admit that Islam is a terrorist cult, not a religion.

  8. Personally, I LIKE the smell of incense, whether it’s in an Indian store, an Orthodox church, or a hippie house.

  9. Why must it be one or the other? Why can’t he have been acting on personal animus and justified his actions theologically under Islam?

    As an aside, I can’t fathom why they didn’t want him in their study group. He’s obviously quite brilliant based on the foolproof plan he laid out. They must be a bunch of bigoted Islamophobes.

  10. “Highly Flammable” petroleum jelly? If he was planning on putting it on the floor, and not building a firebomb, how is that relevant?

    On the other hand, I’ll have to switch to KY, just to be sure friction doesn’t set it off.

  12. How about they let us read his manifesto and puzzle out his motives for ourselves? I bet it’s one paragraph about classmates being jerks and 10 pages about how great Allah is and how Americans are literally the devil.

  14. I’m not prepared to rush to judgment, but let’s be honest. If it is discovered that there was a jihad connection to this incident, whether formal or merely as JosephBleau mentions above as a theological prop, the media will hide that evidence from the public. It conflicts with the “immigrants are great” narrative, and therefore, it cannot be allowed to see the light of day.

  16. Ridiculous supposition.
    California gun laws had nothing to do with it. His actions only indicate that:
    A. He didn’t have access to a gun through a family member or friend;
    B. He could not afford a gun himself
    C. His was a spur of the moment decision and he’d no time to go buy one
    D. He was just plain crazy in fantasizing that he’d could actually disarm a police officer.
    E. Nuts

  17. Perhaps we’ll hear from his parents about how “our decadent western culture brainwashed this otherwise saintly young man and forced him into this. Allahu Akbar”
    ?

  18. No. It means that insane people think it would be easier to take a cop’s gun than buy one.

    Normal criminals would just buy one.

    Don’t over-extrapolate.

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  22. His “plan” also included smearing petroleum jelly on the ground in the hopes that a cop would slip on it like a banana peel.
    We weren’t dealing with the *ahem* sharpest knife in the drawer.

  23. I hear that many prisoners convert to Islam because it doesn’t require that they atone for their sins (unlike Christianity). It is the perfect self-serving rationale for sociopaths.

  25. Expense actually would be very realistic reason. Most gun control advocates clearly haven’t price them or ammo, frankly.

  26. Just a little note, I believe many nonCatholic Christian denominations (rooted in Calvinism) also don’t require atonement from the saved.

    I have read a bit on Malcolm X and the early movements, I think conversion to Islam has been a route for many in prison to find a moral compass, make behavior changes, etc. (many quit drug use, for example). Obviously, as a Catholic I think Islam is a heresy, but I am certain there are many who convert through sincere desire to amend their lives (although I’m pretty sure there are plenty who do so for less noble reasons).

  27. How would that work for the Christian denominations? Don’t you have to at least be sorry, even if Jesus did the heavy lifting??? Hmm..(Wikipedia’s got nothing for me. 😉 )

  28. Atone is “making amends or reparation”.

    This would be, I believe, a version of believing you can be saved by works.

    The thinking (if I’m right, I’m happy to be corrected) by those who follow a “once saved, always saved” theology is that nothing can remove you from the grace of God once you are saved — not even your self. No atonement can be *required*, because required means you have to do it.

    Of course, the follow up to that is that if you are saved, even if you don’t have to atone, you are not required to atone, you will naturally wish to atone.

    Both theologies can get you to the same action (making reparations), but a Catholic theology would make it potentially a pre-condition for salvation, some Protestant theologies would call it a result of salvation.

  29. Thanks for the explanation. It reminds me why I’m Catholic. Honestly, the only way I can run with some Protestant theology is basically it allows to you to be a total goof ball all of your life assuming you’re saved or dammed. Catholicism lets you do that, too though, with the last minute reprieve thing.

    What’s remarkable though is how similarly practicing Christians act in real life, regardless of that theology.

  30. Yes, in both directions!

    I think both theologies have their severe hazards — Catholics have the “I’ll commit this sin and then make sure I make it to confession right away” pitfall, too. We like to think this is just those “bad” Catholics, but I’ve caught myself a few times thinking, “Well, I’m not sure it’s wrong to do this, but if it is and I’ve done it, I can confess it”. . . .oops.

  31. I don’t think the predestination crowd among Christians has ever been very large. Probably owing to it being used as a form of spiritual snobbery.
    As far as noble intent for some Muslims: yes, the Koran has parts that are peaceful and beautiful. Those aren’t the parts anyone has a problem with.

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  34. Two things you are overlooking.

    The states with concealed carry laws tend to have the lowest homicide rates.

    Nationwide, as the gun ownership rate goes up the violent crime rate has been dropping.

    It’s almost as if criminals don’t like doing their thing where someone else is armed…

  35. Gun ownership has been dropping for 50 years in the USA. The number of guns Americans own in increasing but the number of people that own a gun in now down to 25% of Americans and only 50% of Americans live in a house where somebody in the household owns a gun.
    Where do you get you lies?

  37. “According to DOJ’s Bureau of Justice Statistics, U.S. gun-related homicides dropped 39 percent over the course of 18 years, from 18,253 during 1993, to 11,101 in 2011. During the same period, non-fatal firearm crimes decreased even more, a whopping 69 percent. The majority of those declines in both categories occurred during the first 10 years of that time frame. Firearm homicides declined from 1993 to 1999, rose through 2006, and then declined again through 2011. Non-fatal firearm violence declined from 1993 through 2004, then fluctuated in the mid-to-late 2000s.”
    http://www.forbes.com/sites/larrybell/2013/05/14/disarming-realities-as-gun-sales-soar-gun-crimes-plummet/

  39. “The overwhelming majority of defensive gun use stories,” they find, “involve ordinary and decent people defending themselves against criminals.” Cramer and Burnett offer dozens of case studies in which everyday citizens exercise judgment and competency when handling a gun. In the end, they acknowledge that bearing arms is clearly not always the solution in criminal confrontations. However, it is impossible to deny that “a great number of tragedies — murders, rapes, assaults, robberies — have been thwarted by self-defense gun uses.” They conclude that, despite the fears of many gun-control advocates, “gun owners stop a lot of criminal mayhem.”
    http://www.cato.org/policy-report/marchapril-2012/how-guns-stop-crimes

  41. So tell me, where is the line drawn for the 2nd amendment? Should you be able to own a 105? MERV ICBMs?? Biological weapons? Where is the line? REAL QUESTION!

  42. Well no shit genius.
    The states with the highest concentrations of black people have the highest rates of gun violence.
    The thing is neither your stupid statement nor my stupid statement have anything whatsoever to do with what the fallacy of your original stupid statement so your still wrong.

  43. Explain Montana, Wyoming and Idaho. ALL are in the top states with gun violence per capita. Good luck expelling this one…. We’ll wait…

  44. Again retard- your attempted deflections in no way support your original stupidity in stating that California gun laws had anything to do with the other retard’s not having a gun when committed his crime.
    Deflection is a tool that tool’s use to avoid the appearance of defeat after showing their stupidity.
    Wipe your chin, coxucker.

  45. Youdumbbshit moron. I just proved your point false. Racist losers like you are going extinct. In a hundreds years everybody will be brown skinned or inbred and white.

  46. You’re missing the point.

    The Bill of Rights does not restrict people,, it restrains government.

    Government is not your friend.

    Especially a government with heavily armed agents that wants to limit gun ownership.

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