Campus Attack

Based on a question in the comments section, I looked at the local media. (I've been off campus and out of touch all day long.)

It appears that a man in a rented SUV drove from the parking lot behind the main research library down to the area near the cafeteria. (Those are walkways, but you can drive them.) That area is sort of a central gathering place: it's off the main quads and away from the classrooms, but in a rectangle, more or less, you've got the cafeteria, Student Stores, the Student Union, with the libraries just off to the sides, and in the center of the rectangle is a sunken pit called, reasonably enough, The Pit.

All sorts of activities are placed in the Pit, from bands, to political rallies, to, on some days, rows of tables with information for student organizations. Particularly on nice days, people will sit on the steps to eat lunch or drink coffee or just chat, and it becomes very much a central gathering space.

In any event, this guy drove to The Pit and basically used the car as a battering ram trying to take out as many people as he could.

The FBI worked with the cops because he said things (unclear whether this was before or after they grabbed him) to the effect that he acted to avenge the treatment of Muslims in this country.

According to the student paper, although a number of students got his plate, he called 911 himself, but the main thing is he didn't do a very good job: although he hit a number of people, and sent six to the hospital, all have been released.

Whatever he said to the cops, he made them nervous enough to roust the kids living in the other apartments out of his apartment complex while they went through his apartment with a fine-tooth comb, although it appears he was baiting them into that.

Comments

[Glenmore]

The guy drove the SUV into and back out of the Pit? I wonder if the manufacturer could use that in an advertisement for the vehicle's off-road capability.

From the description the guy sounds more like a crazy person off his medications who just happened to be an unhappy Muslim than an Islamic terrorist.

The geography is pretty much how I recalled, with the exception that there is now a library where there used to be a gravel parking lot (where there used to be a baseball field), which was the only way one could reasonably drive a vehicle close to the Pit (we brought an old Dodge as close as we could and sold sledge hammer whacks at it as a final exam stress reliever/fund raiser.)