And Ramit Plushnick-Masti
Associated Press
CYPRESS — A 20-year-old student went on a building-to-building stabbing attack at a Texas community college Tuesday, wounding at least 14 people — many in the face and neck — before being subdued and arrested, authorities said Tuesday.
The Harris County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement that Dylan Quick had been planning the attack at the Lone Star College System’s campus in Cypress for some time and had fantasies of stabbing people to death since he was in elementary school.
A piece of the blade that was thought to be used was found in at least one victim, the sheriff’s office said. Broken blade pieces also were found in the area where the stabbing occurred, and the handle was discovered in a backpack that Quick was carrying when he was arrested.
Authorities were seen entering Quick’s parents’ home in a middle-class neighborhood of Houston on Tuesday night. No one answered the door or the phone at the red brick home, where two vehicles were parked in the driveway, including a Honda Accord with a license plate that said “DYLAN.” It was not immediately known if Quick had an attorney.
The attack happened at 11:20 a.m. and sent at least 12 people to hospitals, while several others refused treatment at the scene, according to Cy-Fair Volunteer Fire Department spokesman Robert Rasa. Two people remained in critical condition Tuesday evening at Memorial Hermann Texas Trauma Institute, spokeswoman Alex Rodriguez said.
Diante Cotton, 20, said he was sitting in a cafeteria with some friends when a girl clutching her neck walked in, yelling: “He’s stabbing people! He’s stabbing people!”
Cotton said he could not see the girl’s injuries, but when he and his friends went outside, they saw a half-dozen people with injuries to their faces and necks being loaded into ambulances and medical helicopters.
Harris County Sherriff Adrian Garcia said that when emergency calls came into the department, there were indications that “students or faculty were actively responding to work to subdue this individual.”
“So we’re proud of those folks, but we’re glad no one else is injured any more severely than they are,” Garcia said.
Michelle Alvarez told the Houston Chronicle she saw the attacker running toward other students and tried to back away. She said she didn’t even feel it as he swiped at her.
“He came running and swinging at my neck, as I tried to get out of the way,” she said.
The attack came three months after a different Lone Star campus was the site of a shooting in which two people were hurt. The suspected gunman in that incident is charged with aggravated assault.
