Picture of the suspect outside Gregory. pic.twitter.com/fEQQxscXhm
— The Daily Texan (@thedailytexan) May 1, 2017
A machete-wielding madman killed one man and injured three more during a bloody slashing spree at the University of Texas Monday, Austin officials said.
The suspect – identified as 21-year-old UT student Kendrex J. White – was arrested two minutes after the bloody rampage began, campus police chief David Carter said.
The fatal victim was a freshman identified as Harrison Brown.
“Harrison was an inspiration to everyone around him,” the man’s high school said in a statement Monday.
“We were Blessed and honored to have known him.”
The suspect didn’t immediately speak to cops but police believe he worked alone.
“I don’t know what his motivation is,” Carter said. “We don’t have any information to suggest anything else (other attacks planned) is going on.”
Paramedics rushed to Gregory Gymnasium near East 21st Street at 1:46 p.m. CDT, officials said.
Freshman Rachel Prichett said she was in line at a food truck just outside Gregory Gym when the attacker grabbed a man in line behind her.
“The guy was standing next to me,” Prichett said. “He grabbed him by the shoulder and shoved the knife in it. I just started running as fast as I could.”
Prichett described the weapon to the American-Statesman newspaper: “It looked like a small machete. It was like wide and curved.”
Another student, Ray Arredondo, tweeted a picture of cops handcuffing a bearded man wearing a bandana on his head – and a knife sheath on his right hip.
Arredondo said he was walking to his car when students by Gregory ran in a panic.
“They were just screaming, ‘Run! Get out of here!’ ” Arredondo said.
Responding cops brought down the suspect after students pointed him out.
“You could see and hear people running and screaming: ‘There he is!'” before he was tackled by officers,” student Lindsey Clark said.
Gregory Gym is a large athletics facility that has classrooms, plays host to rec league sports and is home to the Longhorns women’s volleyball team.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott tweeted that he will be: “Praying for all those affected by this heinous attack.”
Monday’s shocking attack in the middle of campus is just a short walk from the scene of the infamous clock tower shooting on Aug. 1, 1966.
That’s when Charles Whitman killed 16 from his high campus perch, in America’s first mass shooting of the modern live TV era. Whitman, who had murdered his wife and mom hours before the UT slayings, was eventually shot to death by two heroic cops.
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