WASHINGTON—A US college student wounded 14 people, two of them critically, in an apparently unprovoked mass stabbing in Texas on Tuesday, police said, announcing that a suspect had been taken into custody.
Authorities were alerted to a “male on the loose, stabbing people,” shortly after 11 a.m. (1600 GMT) at Lone Star College near Houston, Sheriff Adrian Garcia, of the Harris County Sheriff’s Office, told reporters.
“A suspect has been taken into custody, a white male, that we believe is approximately 21 years of age, and currently enrolled,” he said, confirming the reported number of victims, two of whom refused treatment.
“We do not know exactly what type of weapon was used other than to say that it is at this point an unknown instrument, that we don’t know whether a knife or some other type of instrument,” he added.
The college was placed on lockdown after the alert was raised, with students being taken off campus while buildings were searched for the suspect.
Thomas Gilliland, a spokesman for the Harris County Sheriff’s Office, had earlier told journalists that, according to an initial report, the suspect was wrestled to the ground by a student and arrested by police.
He could not confirm the type of weapon used, but cited varying reports that said it was a pencil or a knife.
An alert on the school’s website said the incident occurred “near and around the Health Science Center and remains an active crime scene with changing and evolving information.” The college was due to reopen on Wednesday.
Robert Rasa of the CyFair Volunteer Fire Department, had described the scene on campus as “pretty chaotic.”