A man has been arrested after a machete attack on Transylvania University’s campus that sent one woman to University of Kentucky Chandler Hospital. 
 
 Mitchell Adkins 
 
 Mitchell W. Adkins, 19, of Cincinnati has been charged with first-degree and fourth-degree assault, and three counts of wanton endangerment, according to police. Adkins is a former Transy undergraduate student who withdrew in 2015, Transylvania spokeswoman Michele Gaither Sparks said. 
 
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 The attacker walked into a coffee shop inside the Glenn Building on Friday morning, asked people their political affiliation, then went on the attack, one witness said. Adkins appears to have a history of publicly protesting what he considered the mistreatment of conservatives on college campuses. 
 
 Adkins was armed with a machete and knives, Lexington Police Chief Mark Barnard said. The various weapons were in a bag, police said later. Adkins made verbal threats to students and staff in the building and struck two women, according to police. 
 
 One victim, a female student, was taken to a hospital with injuries that weren’t considered life-threatening, fire department Battalion Chief Joe Best said. 
 
 Later Friday morning, she was safe, “and her family is with her at UK Hospital,” Transylvania President Seamus Carey said. 
 
 Paramedics treated another female student on campus. She didn’t need to be taken to a hospital, Best said. 
 
 Adkins was taken to a hospital to be evaluated for “self-inflicted injuries,” according to police. 
 
 Tristan Reynolds, a student who was in the campus café where the attack occurred, said about 30 to 40 people were there at the time. 
 
 “A guy came in, banged something, a hatchet or an ax, on the table and said, ‘The day of reckoning has come,’” Reynolds said. “He asked somebody what their political affiliation was, they said ‘Republican,’ and the guy said, ‘You are safe.’ And then I realized what was going on and started getting people out.” 
 
 “We started to scatter and then very, very quickly, campus security was getting everybody sheltered and secure,” Reynolds said. “They were very on it.” 
 
 Campus security officers subdued the assailant quickly, preventing further injury, Barnard said. 
 
 Security officers tackled the suspect, said Sparks, the university spokeswoman. 
 
 In a letter to students, staff and faculty, Carey praised Jazzman’s Café employee Erika Lyvers for “resisting the perpetrator.” 
 
 “This morning she picked up a chair to go after a 230-pound man wielding a hatchet,” Carey said. “As we were talking in the aftermath of the incident, I commented on her courage. She summed up how we all feel today: ‘These students are our babies. Nobody’s going to hurt one of them without a fight.’” 
 
 Students were alerted about the attack by text messages through the campus’ T-Alert system, Sparks said. 
 
 The coffee shop, inside the Glenn Building, has an open floor plan and is a popular spot for students to get coffee and breakfast, Reynolds said. 
 
 He is the editor-in-chief of the Transylvania student newspaper, The Rambler, and he was with newspaper staff at the café. 
 
 Lexington Mayor Jim Gray, Barnard and Carey praised campus security officers for their swift response. 
 
 “They’ve always been amazing, and today they proved their worth again,” Carey said. “They were there immediately. They saved what could have been a much more disastrous situation, and I’d also like to commend the Lexington police for responding immediately as well.” 
 
 “We are vigilant about safety on our campus,” Carey said. “Obviously you never expect something like this, but thankfully we were prepared when it did happen.” 
 
 Lexington police officers remained at Transylvania University for hours after a man armed with a machete and knives entered a campus coffee shop inside the Glenn building, at left, and attacked at least one person. A suspect, thought to be a former student, was arrested. Charles Bertram cbertram@herald-leader.com 
 
 A few weeks ago, Lexington police and Transylvania security officers had active-shooter training, Barnard said. During the training, campus security and police discussed locking down buildings and keeping students and faculty safe. 
 
 “That was very beneficial for us,” Barnard said. 
 
 Transylvania’s emergency response team will convene next week to discuss how the situation was handled, Sparks said. They’ll examine what went well and where improvements can be made. 
 
 “We were very pleased with the response. ... They were exemplary,” Sparks said. 
 
 Campus, including the Glenn Building, reopened later Friday. 
 
 “It has been a very stressful day here on our campus,” Sparks said. “Though classes have been canceled, we have remained on campus to help students. Our very first priority is to be here and be on hand for our students and community members.” 
 
 Classes will resume Monday on a regular schedule, Sparks said. ||||| A former student walked into a busy coffee shop on a Kentucky college campus Friday morning with a bag of knives and swords and attacked a student inside, police said. 
 
 A Transylvania University student, Tristan Reynolds, told the Lexington Herald-Leader he was inside the campus cafe with 30 or 40 other people when “a guy came in, banged something, a hatchet or an ax, on the table and said, ‘The day of reckoning has come.’ 
 
 “He asked somebody what their political affiliation was, they said ‘Republican’ and the guy said, ‘You are safe.’ 
 
 “And then I realized what was going on and started getting people out.” 
 
 Reynolds declined to comment further to The Washington Post on Friday but referred to the quotes in the Lexington Herald-Leader story. 
 
 Some witnesses told police the attacker asked people what their political affiliation was before striking, according to Sgt. Jervis Middleton of the Lexington Police Department, which has not yet “100 percent confirmed” those accounts as the investigation is underway and officers are still getting statements from witnesses and the suspect. 
 
 Mitchell W. Adkins, 19, of Cincinnati was arrested and charged with first-degree assault, fourth-degree assault, and three counts of first-degree wanton endangerment. 
 
 Middleton said Adkins made several threatening statements and then attacked a female student with a machete. 
 
 People inside the cafe ran out and Adkins ran out as well, where he was stopped by campus police officers after a brief struggle and taken into custody, Middleton said. 
 
 Police had been called to the Glenn Building on campus about 8:45 a.m. for a report of an armed attacker. 
 
 “We started to scatter and then very, very quickly campus security was getting everybody sheltered and secure,” Reynolds told the Lexington Herald-Leader. “They were very on it.” 
 
 The student was taken to the hospital and treated for injuries that are not life-threatening, Middleton said. 
 
 “She’s in stable condition at a local hospital,” said Michele Sparks, a spokeswoman for the liberal-arts college in Lexington, Ky. Another student, also a woman, had minor injuries, she said. That student was treated at the scene. 
 
 The university canceled classes for the rest of the day but remains open and has provided counselors for students and others seeking help. Classes had just begun for its May term, Sparks said. 
 
 Adkins was also taken to the hospital and treated for self-inflicted injuries, according to police.
– Witnesses say a man armed with a machete attacked students at a university in Kentucky after asking their political affiliation. The Lexington Herald-Leader reports the suspect—identified by police as 19-year-old Mitchell Adkins—entered a coffee shop on the Transylvania University campus Friday morning with a bag full of knives and a machete. Tristan Reynolds says he was in the cafe with 30 to 40 other students when the suspect announced, "The day of reckoning has come." Reynolds says the suspect asked a man in the cafe his political affiliation, telling him, "You are safe" when he identified himself as a Republican. Police say Adkins attacked two women, at least one of them with a machete, the Washington Post reports. One of the women was hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries; the other was treated at the scene. Campus security quickly detained Adkins, who was hospitalized for "self-inflicted injuries." Adkins has been charged with assault and wanton endangerment. He's a former Transylvania University student, having left the school in 2015. According to WKYT, the same year he left the university he wrote a piece on BuzzFeed complaining that conservatives are discriminated against at liberal arts colleges.