A horrific mass shooting at the Islamic Center of San Diego that left three people dead in May has led to a major legal development, with a 17-year-old girl from North Carolina indicted on multiple murder charges for her role in aiding and abetting the attack. Prosecutors allege the teenager directly facilitated the white supremacist-motivated attack by live-streaming the assault and publishing the attackers’ hateful manifesto after the shooting.
Forsyth County District Attorney Jim O’Neill announced this week that the teen was arrested last week and formally indicted by a grand jury on Monday. O’Neill told reporters the decision to move forward with immediate arrest and charges was rooted in public safety concerns, noting that authorities could not take risks given the upcoming school week and religious holidays. “The thought of her going back to school, with the weekend approaching, holy days approaching, we didn’t know what she was capable of,” O’Neill said at a press briefing.
The teen now faces three counts of murder and one count of conspiracy. Under North Carolina state law, any individual charged with aiding and abetting a criminal act faces the same level of criminal liability as the perpetrators who directly carried out the violence, O’Neill explained.
The May 18 attack was carried out by two teenage males, ages 17 and 18, who opened fire on worshippers and other people at the Southern California mosque before dying by suicide. O’Neill confirmed the pair had two core goals for their attack: first, to kill as many people as possible, and second, to record and live-stream the carnage to spread their ideology and inspire further violence. The attackers mounted recording devices on GoPro-style helmets to capture the entire assault.
Three people lost their lives in the attack: mosque security guard Amin Abdullah, and worshippers Mansour Kaziha and Nader Awad. Abdullah acted heroically during the attack, exchanging gunfire with the shooters and initiating a building lockdown that protected roughly 140 children who were inside the mosque at the time. San Diego Police Chief Scott Wahl previously praised Abdullah’s quick, brave actions, saying they “undoubtedly” saved dozens of lives. Kaziha and Awad were killed in the parking lot after drawing the shooters’ attention away from people inside the building.
Investigators have since uncovered disturbing details about the attackers’ broader plans and extremist beliefs. The pair held a cache of roughly 30 firearms and a crossbow, all of which were stolen from one of the shooter’s parents. They also plotted follow-up attacks at three additional targets: a nearby Jewish temple and a majority African American high school. The attackers left behind written materials filled with virulent racist and antisemitic rhetoric rooted in white supremacist ideology, and they explicitly cited the 2019 Christchurch, New Zealand, mosque shooter—who killed 51 people in a live-streamed attack—as an inspiration for their violence.