San Diego Islamic Center Shooting Investigated As Hate Crime

On Monday, two teenagers opened fire at an Islamic center in San Diego, killing three adults, including a security guard. The identities of the shooters, who died from self-inflicted bullet wounds, have not been made public, but the shooting is being investigated as a hate crime, which suggests the motive was likely exactly what it always is when mosques and other Islamic facilities are attacked: plain old Islamophobia.

According to Fox 5, the FBI’s San Diego field office first reported that the suspects were juveniles, which is true about at least one of them, according to San Diego Police Chief Scott Wahl, who later said they were 18 and 17. Two of the three victims have also not been named publicly yet, but Wahl said that, after the shooting, investigators reviewed footage of the response by the security guard, identified as Amin Abdullah, according to ABC 7, and that “it’s fair to say his actions were heroic,” adding “undoubtedly he saved lives today.”

From Fox 5:

Police received reports around 11:43 a.m. of shots fired at the mosque in the 7000 block of Eckstrom Avenue, located in the Clairemont neighborhood about 9 miles north of downtown San Diego. At 1:06 p.m., the San Diego Police Department posted on social media that the “threat at the Islamic center has been neutralized.”

Wahl said later that officers had been talking to one of the teenagers’ mothers earlier in the day after she had contacted police around 9:42 a.m. to say her son was missing along with several of her weapons and her vehicle. She also said that her son was suicidal and was with a companion, and they were dressed in camouflage.

“She was beginning to develop a bigger picture as to what she was dealing with and was conveying that to our folks, and we were trying to put that together and get out in front of this as quickly as we could,” Wahl said.

The mother also found a note, Wahl said. He did not disclose its contents but said of the case, “There was definitely hate rhetoric that was involved,” though there was no specific threat against the Islamic Center of San Diego, Wahl said. 

The case is being investigated as a hate crime.

Obviously, there’s an elephant in the room that needs to be addressed here. Since the shooting of Charlie Kirk and the alleged assassination attempts on President Donald Trump, pro-MAGA conservatives have been running with the narrative that far-left rhetoric is putting prominent right-wingers in danger. Meanwhile, far-right conservatives across the internet, including elected officials like Rep. Andy Ogles, Sen. Ted Cruz and, of course, President Donald Trump, have used their platforms to spread rampant Islamophobia, as well as hate speech about entire ethnic groups, such as Haitians and Somalis, the latter of which have been a common target of the president’s bigoted vitriol, and also happens to be around 99% Muslim.

Certainly, we all remember when NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani became the frontrunner in the mayoral race, and this immediately happened:

Then Mamdani won, and this immediately happened:

Again, these aren’t all just right-wing influencers and random people on social media. They are lawmakers and other elected officials, whose anti-Muslim hate speech is routine, casual, and normalized as acceptable behavior from people in positions of authority.

“My community is mourning,” Taha Hassane, imam of the Islamic Center of San Diego, said during a news conference following the shooting, according to the New York Times. “This is something we have never expected to take place, but at the same time, the religious intolerance and the hate, unfortunately, that exists in our nation is unprecedented.”

Oh, it’s precedented. Islam has been a target of white nationalist America since at least 9/11, and probably long before then. And it continues to place people in danger.

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