Suspected OSU attacker Abdul Artan was profiled in school newspaper's 'Humans of Ohio State'

The man suspected of driving his car into a crowd of Ohio State University students before attacking them with a butchered knife was recently profiled in the school newspaper's "Humans of Ohio State" feature.

The suspect was identified by campus police in a press conference Monday afternoon as Abdul Razak Ali Artan. NBC, citing law enforcement officials, reported that Artan was a Somali refugee who came to the US legally with his parents in 2014 after living in Pakistan for seven years.

The Lantern, Ohio State University's daily newspaper, appears to have profiled Artan on his first day at OSU in August 2016. Artan told the paper that he had just transfered from Columbus State Community College, and that as a practicing Muslim he "wanted to pray in the open, but I was kind of scared with everything going on in the media."

"If people look at me, a Muslim praying, I don't know what they're going to think, what's going to happen," he said, according to a print edition of the publication that it posted online. "But, I don't blame them. It's the media that put that picture in their heads."

A Columbus State Community College spokesman told Vice News that Atan had just transferred to OSU from the college and had no disciplinary issues while he was a student there.

Artan was fatally shot by campus police officer Alan Horujko on Monday morning, OSU police said.

NBC initially reported that Artan was 18, but The Lantern article indicates that he was already in his third year of a logisitics management degree. Police said they are working to confirm his age.