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PAULKITAGAKIJR.—SACRAMENTOBEE University of California, Merced student Justin Dick, right, hugs his sister Kristen as his parents Beth and Keith look on following a stabbing in Merced. ByScottSmith The Associated Press FRESNO A California col- lege student who went on a stabbing rampage that wounded four people before he was shot down by a cam- pus police officer was in- spired by the Islamic State group but acted alone, the FBI said. Faisal Mohammad, 18, appears to have become self-radicalized, drawing motivation from terrorist propaganda that he found online before launching the Nov. 4 attack at the Univer- sity of California, Merced, authorities said Thursday. "Every indication is that Mohammad acted on his own," Gina Swankie, a spokeswoman for the FBI's Sacramento field office, said in a statement. "It may never be possible to defin- itively determine why he chose to attack people on the U.C. Merced Campus." The knife attack hap- pened a month before a gun-wielding husband- and-wife team in San Ber- nardino killed 14 people and wounded 21 others at a workplace holiday party. In that case, too, investigators said they were influenced by the Islamic State group, but not directly connected to it. Like Mohammad, they had not raised red flags that put them on a watch list. In both cases family members said they were unaware of their loved ones' interests in terrorists groups. In Merced, Mohammad burst into a classroom, stabbing two students. He stabbed a construc- tion worker who inter- vened, then ran from the building, where he knifed a school employee sitting on a bench. Police shot and killed Mohammad. The FBI says the college freshman from Santa Clara, California, for several weeks had visited the websites of Islamic State and other ex- tremist groups. He planned the attack at least a week before carrying it out, in- vestigators said. During the rampage, Mo- hammad carried a back- pack containing a two- page, hand-written man- ifesto detailing plans to bind students to their desks with zip-tie handcuffs, au- thorities have said. Then, he was going to make a fake 911 distress call, ambush responding officers with a hunting knife and steal their guns to shoot a list of targeted classmates. Mohammad's backpack also held a photocopy of an Islamic State group flag and a list of items he would need for the attack, the FBI said. FB I: I S gr ou p ins pi re d student in stabbings UC-MERCED By Amy Taxin The Associated Press SAN BERNARDINO The terror attack that killed 14 people in California in De- cember showed police need a protected radio channel and ambulance person- nel need safety gear, emer- gency responders said Fri- day. Police, fire and medical personnel lauded inter- agency working relation- ships during a state legis- lative hearing convened to learn what worked in the hours after a husband and wife inspired by Islamic ex- tremists opened fire on a luncheon for county health inspectors. But they underscored the need for officers from di- verse agencies to be able to communicate safely with- out worrying about details of a crime being broadcast live. "Our radio traffic was playing out in real time across the nation," said San Bernardino police Lt. Mi- chael Madden, urging law- makers to support efforts to enhance the security of communications. "That is an extremely precarious situation for first-respond- ers in an incident of this magnitude to be put in." His comments came at a hearing of a joint legis- lative committee on emer- gency management called by state Assemblyman Freddie Rodriguez. A similar hearing was held by the committee af- ter the 2013 shooting death of a Transportation Secu- rity Administration worker at Los Angeles Interna- tional Airport. The lessons learned from that hearing prodded state lawmakers to pass legislation requir- ing agencies to cooperate on active-shooter training, Rodriguez said. Since the San Ber- nardino attack, law en- forcement and medi- cal personnel have been evaluating how they re- sponded after Syed Farook and Tashfeen Malik killed 14 people and wounded 22 others at the gathering for Farook's colleagues at the San Bernardino County public health department. Farook and Malik died hours later in a shoot- out with police on a busy street in the largely subur- ban community east of Los Angeles. The couple car- ried out the deadliest ter- ror strike on U.S. soil since Sept. 11, 2001. At the hearing, David Molloy, operations man- ager of private ambulance company American Medi- cal Response, said he was concerned medical re- sponders went without hel- mets or safety vests to an active shooting scene when the whereabouts of Farook and Malik were still un- known. "What would have hap- pened if they would have come back to the scene, or the triage area, and my folks were not protected?" he said. SAN BERNARDINO Hearing: Terror attack showed need for secure radio, vests DAMIAN DOVARGANES ‑ THE ASSOCIATED PRESS FILE Authorities search an area near where police stopped a suspected vehicle in San Bernardino. The Associated Press SANTA CRUZ About 4,000 high school seniors in Maryland, Virginia and Washington mistakenly re- ceived emails this week in- forming them they'd been admitted to UC Santa Cruz and inviting them to meet the school's chancellor at a local reception. Campus admissions di- rector Michael McCawley said in a statement Thurs- day that a regional campus representative accidentally sent the invites to students who had been identified as Santa Cruz prospects but never applied there. McCawley says the emails were meant for a much smaller group that actually had been admit- ted to the California cam- pus on Tuesday. The glitch first was re- ported by The Washing- ton Post. McCawley apologized for the error, calling it an em- barrassinglapseinprotocol. He also wished the students wellingainingadmissionto wherever they had applied. SANTA CRUZ Students mistakenly receive UC admission notices The Associated Press MURRIETA A California judge dismissed a murder charge Friday filed against a drug and alcohol reha- bilitation center where a man died after seeking help to treat a drinking problem. The case was the first time a California corpora- tion was accused of mur- der, the facility's attorneys said. Riverside County Supe- rior Court Judge Elaine Kiefer ruled there was in- sufficient evidence to sup- port the second-degree murder charge against A Better Tomorrow and four of its employees in the 2010 death of patient Gary Benefield. In her ruling, Kiefer wrote the workers gave Benefield drugs with the intention of easing his dis- comfort, not causing any harm. "There is no evidence that any of the defen- dants knew that their acts of giving medications to Benefield were danger- ous to the extent that they risked killing him, and so no evidence that they con- sciously disregarded that risk to Benefield's life," Kiefer wrote. Benefield collapsed by his bed and died shortly after arriving at A Better Tomorrow in Murrieta. His body was found in the morning. Experts testified the drugs Benefield was given would not cause death on their own. But a physician who took the stand for the prosecution said that while drug toxicity was not a pri- mary issue in his cause of death, it could have been a factor. Legal experts have said the murder charge could be hard to prosecute but might have been intended to put California's drug and rehabilitation indus- try on alert. An attorney for the pros- ecution did not immedi- ately return a call for com- ment Friday. Brian Hennigan, an at- torney representing one of the employee defendants, said the dismissal brought a "great feeling of relief." "We got a fair hearing, had a chance to present our evidence, and the court reached the right conclu- sion," Hennigan said. Benefield had recently been hospitalized for pneu- monia and was connected to an oxygen tank when he arrived at A Better Tomor- row. Prosecutors argued the company killed Benefield by allowing employees with little or no medical training to give him drugs without consulting a physi- cian or getting a prescrip- tion. They said the drugs made it harder for Bene- field to breathe. Though the judge dis- missed the murder charge, she upheld an additional charge of dependent adult abuse for all but one of the defendants. Kiefer ruled there was sufficient evidence for a grand jury to find seven of the eight defendants will- fully caused or permitted Benefield's health to be en- dangered while he was at the treatment facility. Ev- idence presented to the grand jury showed detox medications that went un- used or were leftover by other patients were then given to new clients. The medications were intended to alleviate with- drawal symptoms. DEATH INVESTIGATED Murder charges against Riverside County rehab center dismissed (530) 527-1000 visit us at: www.redbluffroundup.com Likeusonfacebook RODEO AMERICA'S ORIGINAL EXTREME SPORT! APRIL 15, 16, 17, 2016 1921 ~ 2016 95 TH TICKETS ON SALE NOW! 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