Teen who recorded San Diego mosque shooting livestream charged with murder
A 17-year-old girl who recorded a livestream of a shooting that killed three people at a San Diego mosque and disseminated the attackers’ hate-filled writings has been charged with murder by aiding and abetting, according to a North Carolina district attorney.
The girl, whose name was not immediately released, was arrested last week, Forsyth County District Attorney Jim O’Neill said at a news conference in Winston-Salem. A grand jury indicted her on three counts of murder and one count of conspiracy on Monday, just before she was due to begin the school year.
In North Carolina, aiding-and-abetting charges carry the same punishment as if the girl had committed the attack herself, according to O’Neill. She agreed before the attack that she would record the livestream, distribute it and release a document written by the shooters, according to an indictment seen by The Associated Press.
She carried out those tasks, and bought a patch featuring a white-supremacist symbol and sent it to one of the gunmen to wear during the shooting, the court papers allege.
“The individual here, locally, was the person who was recording the livestream,” O’Neill said. “She disseminated that information and she published their manifesto.”
San Diego mosque shooting
Cain Clark, 17, and Caleb Vazquez, 18, both died after attacking the Islamic Center on May 18. They killed three people, Amin Abdullah, Mansour Kaziha and Nadir Awad, who lost their lives trying to deter the shooters.
Kaziha and Awad were trying to lure the two gunmen away from the mosque but were “unfortunately unable to flee,” San Diego Police Chief Scott Wahl said at a press conference after the shooting. “Both suspects were able to successfully corner them and kill both of them.”
Abdullah, a father of eight who was working as a security guard, was able to keep the two teenage gunmen from entering the mosque, Wahl said.
“His actions, without a doubt, delayed, distracted and ultimately deterred these two individuals from gaining access to the greater areas of the mosque, where as many as 140 kids were within 15 feet of these suspects,” Wahl added.
The mosque’s director, Taha Hassane, echoed the police chief’s sentiment, saying, “If it was not for him … The carnage would be much worse. He’s the one who stopped them, who slowed them down. … He sacrificed his life.”
The attackers cited a range of far-right ideological inspirations in their rambling writings and included hateful rhetoric toward Jewish people, Muslims and Islam, the LGBTQ+ community, Black people, women, and the political left and right.
The shooters said they were trying to accelerate the collapse of society and Vazquez wrote of having “some mental health issues” and being rejected by women.
In a written statement, the Vazquez family said Caleb Vazquez was on the autism spectrum and had started to resent parts of his identity. They said they believed that, along with exposure to hateful rhetoric online, contributed to his radicalization.
