LEILA FADEL, HOST:
San Diego authorities are sharing more information about the victims and suspects in the attack at a mosque that killed three people.
A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
Community leaders say the three men who were killed sacrificed their lives to save the 140 children inside the school at the center.
FADEL: On Tuesday, Imam Taha Hassane, who leads the center, paid tribute to them. There, was Mansour Kaziha, who’d been there since they broke ground on the site 40 years ago.
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TAHA HASSANE: He was the handyman. He was the cook. He was the caretaker. He was the store keeper. He was everything.
MARTÍNEZ: Nadir Awad ran to help when he heard the gunfire.
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HASSANE: And both of them, they tried to do something. They were hiding in the parking lot next to the kitchen. They tried to do something to protect.
FADEL: And then there was the mosque security guard, Brian Climax, who went by Amin Abdullah.
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HASSANE: He’s the one who stopped them, who slowed them up – down. If he didn’t do what he did, the two suspects would have easily access to every single classroom.
FADEL: His daughter, Hawaa Abdullah, spoke at a press conference.
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HAWAA ABDULLAH: Regardless, if you were a Muslim, OK, if you were Christian, if you were Jewish, if you had no faith, he didn’t care. He would treat you human to human. He would smile at people he did not know.
FADEL: Officials also started to share information about writings outlining the beliefs of the two teen suspects who killed these men. They met online. Special agent in charge of the FBI field office Mark Remily said they, quote, “did not discriminate on who they hated.” NPR’s domestic extremism correspondent, Odette Yousef, has been looking into materials online that are believed to be tied to the incident, and she joins me now, Hi, Odette.
ODETTE YOUSEF, BYLINE: Hey, Leila.
FADEL: So what have you found?
YOUSEF: Well, I’ve watched a video that the suspects appear to have livestreamed of the shooting, and I’ve read a 75-page document that’s attributed to two named individuals. NPR has confirmed that those are the suspect names with someone who’s familiar but not authorized to speak about the ongoing investigation. And the materials show that these individuals were part of a global white supremacist accelerationist movement. They believed white people are being systematically replaced. They blame Jews for that. They believe Black people are genetically inferior. They believe women are also responsible for everything wrong in the world. And what they want, Leila, is to accelerate the disintegration of our social fabric and bring about civil war. I’ll say that everything I looked at in terms of these materials was unfortunately very familiar.
FADEL: Very familiar, as in you’ve seen it before, they’re following some kind of script?
YOUSEF: Yes, very much so. This shooting recalls the 2019 attack at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, where an Australian white nationalist killed 51 people. Many elements appear to be copied here, you know, the live streaming, the type of clothing, the white handwriting on the guns. And the perpetrator of that attack is revered in the writings that I reviewed, you know, along with many other who’ve committed racially or religiously driven violence.
FADEL: Authorities yesterday also said that it appears the suspects in this case were radicalized online. Is that apparent from the materials you looked at?
YOUSEF: Well, those indicators that the suspects were replicating previous attacks, that certainly suggests that they consumed online content that directed how they executed this attack. But something that was different here is that the writings didn’t only pull from pseudoscience and conspiracy theories found in obscure online hate spaces. They also mentioned the fear of Sharia law taking over towns in Texas, Somali daycare fraud in Minnesota. They claimed Islam is incompatible with the West, and they parroted the great replacement conspiracy theory. You know, this is not fringe material anymore, found only in obscure far right forums. These are now mainstream talking points in right-leaning media, from Republican members of Congress and even the White House.
FADEL: That’s NPR’s Odette Yousef. Thank you for that reporting, Odette.
YOUSEF: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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