At this stage, it appears that the suspects died from gunshot wounds that they inflicted on themselves, San Diego Police Chief Scott Wahl stated during a press conference. The presumed shooters were ages 17 and 18, he clarified in a second media briefing, after initially stating that the older one was 19. The motivations remain to be clarified, but the police are currently treating the case as an Islamophobic attack. According to initial investigation findings, “there was clearly hate speech involved,” explained Scott Wahl. “There was no specific threat, particularly no specific threat targeting the Islamic center, it was just a type of general hate speech, covering a wide range,” he added.
Report of a “runaway minor”
The shooting prompted a massive deployment of heavily armed police officers. When the first responders arrived, four minutes after the initial alerts, they found “three dead” in front of the Islamic center, according to Scott Wahl. Among the victims, a security guard allegedly “played a decisive role in preventing the situation from being much worse.” The children were evacuated from the school and all placed in safety. Before taking their own lives, the two shooters also seemed to have targeted a neighborhood gardener, failing to injure him.
One of the shooters had been reported to the police as a “runaway minor” by his mother early in the morning, Scott Wahl explained. She described her son as “suicidal” and said he had disappeared with his car and several weapons. According to her description, her son left with a friend, both dressed in camouflage gear. This led the police to deploy personnel around his high school before reports of gunfire at the mosque. The teenager left a note behind, the content of which Scott Wahl refused to disclose. However, the police chief doubted that the teenager was suicidal, stating, “A suicidal person would not take three weapons.”
“Hate has no place in California”
As the investigation progresses, San Diego and the United States are in shock, especially since this attack occurred on the first day of Dhu al-Hijjah, a sacred period for the Muslim community. President Donald Trump lamented a “terrible situation.” “My community is in mourning. It’s something we never imagined would happen,” expressed one of the mosque’s imams, Taha Hassane, warning against “religious intolerance and unprecedented hate” in the United States.
