William Clark, left, a professor who was hospitalized after an attack on Ohio State’s campus on Nov. 28, and Andrew Thomas address the media inside the Wasserstrom Auditorium at the James Cancer Hospital on Nov. 29. Credit: Dan Smyth | Lantern Reporter
William Clark, a professor who was a victim of an attack that sent him — as well as 10 others — to the hospital on Monday, spoke to the media Tuesday during a news conference at the James Cancer Hospital. He expressed restraint in judging his attacker.
“Before I pass judgment on this young man, I’d like to see what exactly the circumstances are and exactly why he took the course of action he chose,” Clark said. “At the end of the day, as I said earlier, I’m still going home this afternoon and he’s dead.”
Abdul Razak Ali Artan, a third-year in logistics management, used his car and a knife in order to attack victims before he was shot and killed by University Police officer Alan Horujko. Police have not yet released a motive for his attack.
Clark, professor emeritus of material science engineering, said he had no affiliation with Artan prior to yesterday’s attack. He said he believed Officer Horujko did the right thing given the circumstances.
Clark was careful not to jump to any conclusions about why Artan committed this attack.
“I’m a research professor, I like to make my guesses based on data,” Clark said.
Clark said he has canceled his class for Wednesday in order to give his students some time to recover from the trauma of the incident, but said that he may talk about the incident in class on Friday.
Currently, three victims still remain hospitalized, said Andrew Thomas, Chief Medical Officer for the Wexner Medical Center.
“At this point we are just thankful there are no life-threatening injuries and we expect all of the individuals to make a full recovery,” Thomas said.
Although not present at the briefing, another victim of the attack, Katie Schultz, left a statement to be read.
“My family and I appreciate everyone’s concern about my well being. Right now I am focused on my recovery and my family is providing me with the support and love that I need during this difficult time,” Schultz said in the statement. “We’re thankful that I was not serious injured and we thank emergency responders for ending the situation as quickly as possible.”
There was one humorous moment near the end of the news briefing.
“We are still a great university, we still beat Michigan,” joked Clark.
