Worker called hero for facing California university attacker

(AP) — A construction worker who ran into a California university classroom to break up what he thought was a fight was hailed as a hero for preventing an 18-year-old student armed with a hunting knife from possibly killing his intended target.

The attacker then ran out of the room, down two flights of stairs and outside the building, where he stabbed a school employee sitting on a bench, Warnke said.

Police allowed students who live on campus to come and go, but some anxious parents waited in their vehicles at the end of the closed main road enter to pick up their children.

Stabbings involving multiple victims on college campuses have not raised as much alarm as mass shootings because the attacks do not usually result in as many deaths or injuries.

A student at Morgan State University in Maryland was charged in March with slashing two other students with a pocket knife outside a campus dining hall.

UC Merced has about 6,000 students and opened a decade ago in the state's farm belt in response to the burgeoning enrollment in the nine other UC campuses.