Three men have been killed at a mosque in San Diego after two teen shooters opened fire, in an attack police are investigating as a hate crime.
Three people died in the attack at the Islamic Center of San Diego, the largest mosque in San Diego County.
Two suspects, aged 17 and 18, were also found dead from self-inflicted gunshot wounds a few blocks from the site of Monday’s shooting, police said.
There was no specific threat made against the Islamic Center of San Diego but authorities found evidence the teens engaged in “generalised hate rhetoric,” San Diego Police Chief Scott Wahl said.
One of the suspects had left a suicide note that talked about racial pride, law enforcement officials told ITV News’ US media partner CNN, and hate speech was scrawled on one of the weapons used in the shooting.
Officers had already been searching for the two teens before the shooting, after one of their mothers contacted the police to say her son was suicidal and had run away, according to Wahl.
She also told them weapons were missing from the home, and her vehicle had gone, he said.
One of the three men killed in the shooting was a security guard at the front of the mosque, who was identified by a family friend as Amin Abdullah.
Police believe Abdullah “played a pivotal role” in keeping the attack from being “much worse”, Wahl said.
“It’s fair to say his actions were heroic. Undoubtedly, he saved lives today,” the chief told reporters.
The centre called Abdullah “a courageous man who put himself on the line for the safety of others, who even in his last moments did not stop protecting our community”.
“He wanted to defend the innocent, so he decided to become a security guard,” said family friend Shaykh Uthman Ibn Farooq, who spoke with Abdullah’s son.
The center is the largest mosque in San Diego County and includes the Al Rashid School, which offers courses in Arabic language, Islamic studies and the Quran for students ages five and up, according to its website.
Police responded within four minutes of being called, Wahl said, and could hear gunshots a few blocks away where a landscaper was shot at but uninjured.
The shooters were then found dead in a vehicle stopped in the middle of a road nearby, he said.
Aerial TV footage showed more than a dozen children holding hands and being walked out of the parking lot of the center as it was surrounded by scores of police vehicles.
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