The Ohio State University police officer who stopped a knife and car attack on campus a year ago Tuesday says it was training and coincidence that helped him avert more damage that day.
“The training is what really kept kinda my whole world from collapsing in on me.”
Officer Alan Horujko talked about the day in a video released Monday by Ohio State. He says he was helping direct traffic on campus near Watts Hall after a gas leak when he saw a car skip the curb and drive into a courtyard, hitting several people.
“And I think at the time I just thought it was a medical emergency, it was just an accident. So, I remember calling on the radio, saying ‘I need multiple ambulances; we had a vehicle go through multiple people’, and I positioned my car closer to trying and block more traffic.”
But when 18-year old Abdul Razak Ali Artan emerged from the car with a butcher knife, and began attacking people, Horujko realized the situation was similar to a training scenario he had recently taken. He called repeatedly for Artan to drop the knife.
And at that point I remember him looking at me, looking at the female he was chasing, and then the front doors he was trying to get to. Looking back at me again, then making a longer turn and running straight at me at that point.”
Horujko then shot five times, killing the OSU student. 13 people were injured in the incident, which closed parts of the campus for much of the day, and left the community on edge. In May, a grand jury concluded that Horujko had acted within the law, and last month Ohio State's Police Division Board of Review ruled that his use of deadly force was "objectively reasonable". Ohio State will hold a brief commemorative event for the community to reflect on the incident today at 1 pm at the Ohio Union.
