Law enforcement authorities immediately acted as jihad deniers when a student named Faisal Mohammed stabbed five people at the University of California, Merced last week before being shot dead by police.  The narrative they offered was:

It wasn't terrorism, police said, that led Faisal Mohammad to stab four people Wednesday morning on the UC Merced campus. Instead, it was anger from being kicked out of a study group that spurred a horrific plan, which included ambushing police officers and shooting students, according to the Merced County Sheriff. (snip)

"There was absolutely nothing they could find to indicate anything other than his being a college student at UC Merced," [Sheriff] Warnke said, adding the attack was the result of "personal animosities."

In the later news conference, Warnke stressed that focusing on Mohammad's religious beliefs would be unfounded.

"There are lots of people of the Muslim faith that are kind, gentle, loving people," Warnke said. "One person (who commits a crime) can't be grouped into that whole."

UC Merced Chancellor Dorothy Leland also stressed that, based on the evidence gathered so far, "we have no reason to believe this was related to terrorism."

This is laughable, as Mark Steyn among others noted:

I find it odd that this is, the first thing that happens now, whenever some guy called Mohammed, sometimes Mohammed is his first name, sometimes, it’s a surname, sometimes, it’s both names, and the first thing that anybody does anywhere around the Western world is rush to assure us that this has nothing to do with either Islam or terrorism. So there’s nothing, no reason to worry, folks, because if someone suddenly decides to come at you and he’s shouting Allahu Akbar, that’s just Arabic for there’s nothing to see here. There’s no problem, just move on, nothing to see here. And it’s interesting how the headline in the newspaper, on ABC News’ website, it struck me. It said suspect in UC Merced stabling ID’d as 18 year old from Santa Clara. So this is the way it’s presented now. It’s like a, you know, those crazy teenagers from Santa Clara, you know, these juvenile delinquents they’ve got down there in the leather jackets, these Santa Clara teens, beware of them. They’re crazy guys. The Santa Clara community, you don’t want to go near any of them. And we all know the reality of what is going on here. We know the success that the Islamic State and other groups have had in using social media to make jihad sexy and appealing. And it is grossly irresponsible for law enforcement, particularly who are usually very, in any other circumstances, they’re cautious not to rule anything out until all the facts are in, to essentially engage in this effort just to make Islam feel good about itself on days like these. That’s not their primary responsibility. And eventually, people will resent them for it, and won’t believe law enforcement, and won’t believe other parts of the bureaucracy, and nothing good is going to come from telling your citizenry that you can’t believe a word they say.

Now the cover-up is falling apart.  Not through the efforts of the national MSM, which has its story and is sticking to it.  The local paper, the Merced Sun-Star, reported Monday:

New details that have emerged about the 18-year-old computer science student who was shot and killed by police after stabbing four people last week at UC Merced have led authorities to hand control of the criminal investigation to campus police and the FBI, Merced County Sheriff Vern Warnke confirmed.

The decision was made after “new information” about Faisal Mohammad came to light Saturday, Warnke said. He declined to elaborate.

“I’m not at liberty to discuss the information, but the developments on Saturday caused us to turn that over to (UC Merced) and the FBI will assist them,” Warnke said.

A law enforcement official, who spoke to the Sun-Star on condition of anonymity, said the information included questions about the manner in which Mohammad was dressed during the Nov. 4 attack and the types of websites he may have visited in the weeks and days before. Additionally, the official said, investigators found a printout of an image of an Islamic State flag among Mohammad’s belongings.

The significance of the items, and any possible connection to the attack, is unclear and remains under investigation, the official said.


Nobody wants to jump to a conclusion, the way they might if anyone who had visited a Tea Party site were involved in a stabbing attack.  But as Fox News notes (via the New York Post):

the extreme way Mohammad dealt with his rage, the presence of the printout of Islamic State’s black flag and the deadly plans spelled out in the two-page document he carried could indicate there was more to the attack than simple rejection.

“This fits exactly with what ISIS is looking for, individuals to go and do an act of terrorism unilaterally,” said Patrick Dunleavy, former deputy inspector general of the New York State Police Criminal Intelligence Unit and author of the 2011 book “The Fertile Soil of Jihad: Terrorism’s Prison Connection. “The fact that he may have been kicked out of a study group does not preclude this being a lone wolf act. It only needs some sort of trigger, which could be totally unrelated to Islam, that causes him to act on his rage and attribute it to Allah.”

Dunleavy likened it to the case of Alton Nolen, who allegedly beheaded a former co-worker at a food plant in Oklahoma City in 2014. While he was angry over a workplace issue, his actions were likely the result of radicalization, said Dunleavy.

“ISIS is not looking for a few good men; one crazy will do,” Dunleavy said. “This is what a lone wolf looks like.”

ISIS is actively promoting lone wolf attacks like this. But the public is being lulled into complacence by law enforcement officials in cahoots with the MSM.