Fairfield grad who shot OSU attacker ‘a stand-up guy’

When Adam Marcum, a 2007 Fairfield High School graduate, saw a picture of his friend on social media Monday afternoon, he immediately thought the worst.

“My heart sank,” Marcum said this morning.

That's because his friend, Alan Horujko, is a police officer on the Ohio State University campus.

“When you see a picture of an officer, it’s never a good thing,” Marcum said.

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Then Marcum read the story and realized Horujko was being hailed as a hero after firing the shot that killed a man who hit a group of pedestrians with his car on OSU’s campus Monday morning before stabbing at the victims with a knife.

Marcum, 28, a Miami University graduate, works at The Chamber of Commerce serving Middletown, Monroe and Trenton. He met Horujko when the two played in the Fairfield High marching band. They have remained friends, mostly communicating on social media.

He wasn't surprised that Horujko, 28, engaged the suspect, now being identified as 18-year-old Abdul Razak Ali Artan, shot and killed him.

“He’s always been a stand-up guy,” Marcum said. “He does the right thing. Has good values.”

Ten people were transported to nearby hospitals with only one person in critical condition.

Horujko was working on campus at Ohio State when the attack took place and was able to respond quickly because he had just been called near the scene to attend to a fire alarm, according to officials

The director of public safety at Ohio State, Monica Moll, said at a press conference that the car drove into the crowd of people at 9:52 a.m., according to a tweet from Ohio State A&P.

Horujko reported that there was a man with a knife a few seconds later and then called out “shots fired” and reported one person down at 9:53 a.m.

Jill Wilhelm, Fairfield High School band director, had Horujko as a clarinet player in the marching band.

“He comes from a wonderful family, and they instilled in him some great values. He was fun-loving in high school and very out-going,” Wilhelm said.

Horujko graduated from OSU with a major in security and intelligence in 2012. He joined the Ohio State University police force in January of 2015. Friends remember that Horujko has said his career aspirations are to work for national intelligence agencies.

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