Police detail ‘heroic’ actions of 3 victims, ‘hateful beliefs’ of suspected attackers

Authorities credited the three victims in Monday’s deadly shooting at a San Diego mosque with saving countless lives by occupying the two attackers and keeping them from reaching people inside the building until police arrived at the scene.

“All three of our victims did not die in vain,” San Diego Police Chief Scott Wahl said during a news conference on Tuesday. “Without distracting the attention, without delaying the actions of these two individuals … without question, there would have been many more fatalities yesterday.”

One of the victims was identified as Amin Abdullah, a security guard at the mosque who was killed after exchanging gunfire with the attackers and triggering a lockdown order that Wahl said prevented them from gaining access to anyone inside the building, including 140 children studying at the school on site.

The other two victims, Mansour Kaziha and Nader Awad, were shot outside the building. While outside, the attackers heard police vehicles approaching and fled the scene, Wahl said. The suspects were found dead a few blocks away from apparent self-inflicted gunshot wounds.

Authorities have not identified the two suspects, but have said they were two teenagers who appear to have been radicalized online with “hateful beliefs” against a broad range of groups, FBI Special Agent in Charge Mark Remily said Tuesday.

What happened?

Police responded to a report of an active shooting at the Islamic Center of San Diego shortly before noon local time on Monday, where they found three deceased victims outside, Wahl said during a news conference afterward.

On Tuesday, Wahl detailed how Abdullah confronted the suspects, exchanged gunfire with them and issued a lockdown protocol. Abdullah was killed near the entrance to the mosque.

Security footage shows that the suspects then went “room to room” inside the building, but were unable to find anyone because of the lockdown that Abdullah issued, police said.

“If it was not for him … the carnage would be much worse,” Taha Hassane, imam at the Islamic Center, said Tuesday. “If he didn’t do what he did, and sacrifice his life, the two suspects would have [had] easy access to every single classroom.”

The mosque is also the site of a school for children from pre-K to 3rd grade. Children were present at the time of the incident, but none were hurt, police said.

Wahl said the suspects then spotted Kaziha and Awad through a window and exited the building to go after them. After shooting them both, the suspects appeared to have heard police vehicles quickly approaching and fled in their car, he said.

At around the same time that police arrived at the Islamic center, there were reports of more gunfire a few blocks away, where it is believed the fleeing suspects fired at a landscaper, police said. Officers were then called to another nearby location, where a vehicle was found in the middle of the street, with the two suspects dead inside.

What we know about the victims

Hassane described Abdullah, the security guard, as “such a lovely person” who “never stopped smiling.”

He was the absolute best dad in the world,” his daughter, Hawaa Abdullah, said during a press conference on Tuesday. “He was my protector.”

“Regardless of if you were Muslim, if you were Jewish, if you had no faith. He didn’t care. He would treat you human to human,” she continued. “And I believe that’s exactly the legacy he left behind. He wants all of us to be better.”

A family friend of Abdullah’s also told the Associated Press that he had spoken with one of Abdullah’s sons as the family began to make funeral plans.

“He wanted to defend the innocent, so he decided to become a security guard,” Shaykh Uthman Ibn Farooq said.

Abdullah was raised a Christian, but decided to convert to Islam after graduating from high school, according to the AP, which reported that he had worked at the mosque for more than a decade.

Kaziha was “the pillar of the Islamic Center of San Diego,” Hassane said Tuesday and had been a member of the community “working nonstop” since the mosque was first built in the 1980s.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do at the Islamic Center without his daily assistance,” Hassane said.

Awad, whose wife is a teacher at the center, lived across the street and went there to worship every day, Hassane said.

“These are our three heroes,” he said.

The fund set up to support the families of the victims had raised more than $550,000 as of Tuesday afternoon.

What we know about the suspects

Law enforcement officials identified the suspects to Reuters and the New York Times as Cain Clark, 17, and Caleb Vasquez, 18. They appear to have met online, Remily said.

On Tuesday, Wahl explained that police had received a report of a “runaway juvenile” from Clark’s mother a few hours before the shooting.

After learning that some of the mother’s weapons had gone missing and that her son and a companion were dressed in camouflage, police began to believe there was a “bigger threat picture” facing the area, Wahl said.

Police searched several locations for the suspect, including a school and a local mall, when they received the call about the shooting at the mosque.

During searches conducted after the attack, authorities seized at least 30 guns and a crossbow, including pistols, rifles and shotguns, Remily said. The guns appear to have belonged to the parents of one of the suspects, Wahl said.

Authorities also found what they described as a manifesto and other hateful messages in their searches of the suspects’ possessions and electronic devices, though they haven’t found evidence that the mosque was a specific target.

“These subjects did not discriminate on who they hated,” Remily said.

Remily added that authorities are not sharing specifics about the suspects’ beliefs because they don’t want to “give their hate any credibility.”