California knife attacker’s manifesto: Detailed ‘delusional’ plan including time to ‘praise Allah’

A handwritten manifesto found on the body of a California college student who went on a stabbing spree leaving four wounded on Wednesday involved an elaborate plan to ambush police, steal their guns, and kill – as well as breaks to “praise Allah”

Merced County Sheriff Vern Warnke said the two-page document found in Faisal Mohammad’s pocket by the county coroner featured a numeric list of his plans, including whom he wanted to kill and whether to behead or shoot them.

“No.27 was to ‘make sure people are tied down,’ No. 28 was ‘sit down and praise Allah,’” Warnke told Fox News. “I remember seeing four or five times, scribbled on the side of the two-page manifesto, where he wrote something like ‘praise Allah.’”

The manifesto has not been released, but Warnke said he expects that it will be within the next few days. The elaborate plan to kill his classmates was, in part, revenge for being kicked out of a study group.

According to the manifesto, the plan included binding students to their desks with zip-tie handcuffs, after which Mohammad was going to make a fake 911 distress call, ambush responding officers with a hunting knife, steal their guns, and shoot a list of targeted classmates, including those in his study group.

Warnke described the plan as “the delusions of an angry young man,” saying Mohammad wanted to do more harm than he did, but didn’t have the capacity to do so, according to the Associated Press.

There had been no outward warning that the 18-year-old, described by classmates as a loner, would burst into the university classroom and slash his fellow students. There had been no run-ins with police, officials said. No video had been posted to YouTube explaining his violent plans, like in the case of Elliot Rodger who killed six and injured 14 at the University of California, Santa Barbara in 2014. Nor did Mohammad spend time in outpatient treatment prior to the attack, as was the case with Seung-Hui Cho, the Virginia Tech gunman who massacred 32 people in 2007.

“There was zero radar on this fellow,” Warnke said, according to the Associated Press.

Background checks conducted with help from the FBI and Homeland Security revealed no connections to organized hate or terror groups, the sheriff said. Moreover, there was nothing from Mohammad’s childhood pointing to violence, investigators said.

“There was nothing to indicate he was doing this because of Allah, or because he was going to be rewarded with 72 virgins, or because of ties to a terror group,” Warnke said. “He appeared to be a devout Muslim, on the strong side of the belief.”

Still, Mohammed stabbed two students, a university employee, and a construction contractor, who interrupted the attack before campus police shot Mohammad to death.