University stabber 'looked like he was having fun'

MERCED, Calif. -- He attacked with a smile on his face.

Faisal Mohammad, 18, burst into an early-morning University of California, Merced, classroom Wednesday with a knife and started stabbing a student, authorities said. Byron Price, the construction worker credited with preventing Mohammad from killing, said the teen looked scared.

"He also looked like he was having fun," Price told the Merced Sun Star. "His eyes, I could see fear in his eyes. He was smiling."

Authorities Thursday were investigating why the quiet student from Santa Clara carried out the campus attacks that wounded four people, all of whom are expected to survive.

His college roommate called him an anti-social loner. But a high-school friend expressed shock Mohammad is suspected of stabbing four people.

Faisal Mohammad

"He was quiet, but he was really friendly," Ish Patel said. "He was intelligent, too; he performed well academically."

Patel said Mohammad enjoyed basketball, going to the mosque to pray and playing video games with his friends.

Patel said he lost contact with Mohammad after high-school graduation in June.

"I'm definitely shocked," Patel said.

Mohammad's suitemate at college, however, paints another portrait.

Andrew Velasquez told KSFN-TV in Fresno that Mohammad kept to himself.

"(Mohammad) didn't talk much. And I never saw him walk with anybody. Walking to class, I never saw him walk with anybody," Velasquez said.

Mohammad was majoring in computer science and engineering.

One student still was hospitalized Thursday, and a staff member who suffered a collapsed lung was recovering after surgery, the school said in a statement.

Price and another student were treated and released.

Classes were canceled until today at the university about 120 miles south of Sacramento in the farm-rich San Joaquin Valley.