SAN DIEGO: Two teenage gunmen wearing camouflage killed a security guard and two other men outside the Islamic Centre of San Diego on Monday before dying of apparent self-inflicted gunshot wounds, police said.
The attack unfolded about 11:40 a.m. PDT at the largest mosque in San Diego County, with children attending a day school at the complex accounted for and safe, officials said.
San Diego Police Chief Scott Wahl said local law enforcement and the FBI were investigating the attack as a hate crime, though no precise motive has been publicly suggested.
About two hours before the shooting, the mother of one of the suspects called police to report that her son, whom she described as suicidal, had run away from home with three guns she owned and her vehicle, Wahl said at an evening news conference. The mother said her son was with a companion and that both were dressed in camouflage.
Police initiated efforts to track down the youths and were dispatching patrols to a nearby shopping mall and the son’s high school as a precaution when calls came in reporting the mosque shooting, Wahl said. He declined to disclose the contents of a note he said was found by the mother.
“We have never experienced a tragedy like this before,” Taha Hassane, the imam and director of the Islamic Centre, told reporters. “It is extremely outrageous to target a place of worship.”
Wahl said 50 to 100 officers from across the San Diego area responded to the first “active shooter” call and converged on the mosque within four minutes. The security guard who was killed likely helped prevent further bloodshed, officials said.
Police later discovered the bodies of two teenage males, ages 17 and 18, in a vehicle on a nearby street, dead from apparently self-inflicted gunshot wounds. Police originally put the age of the older youth at 19.
Investigators are also treating as connected a shooting at a landscaper a few blocks away. The landscaper was not injured and was wearing a helmet that may have deflected a bullet, Wahl said.
Television aerial footage showed more than a dozen children holding hands as they were escorted from the mosque’s parking lot.
“I’ll tell you what got me,” Wahl said. “Watching kids come running out, just thankful to be alive.”
The Islamic Centre serves a congregation of more than 5,000 people and also houses Al Rashid School, which offers classes in Arabic, Islamic studies and the Quran for children aged 5 and older.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom said, “Hate has no place in California.”
New York Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani said he was “horrified” by the attack.
“Islamophobia endangers Muslim communities across this country. We must confront it directly and stand together against the politics of fear and division. My thoughts are with the victims, their loved ones, and the entire community grieving this devastating attack,” he said.
“The NYPD is increasing deployments to mosques across the city out of an abundance of caution. There are currently no known threats to NYC houses of worship,” he added.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations condemned the attack as “horrifying.”
The attack came the week before Eid al-Adha and the Hajj pilgrimage.
