Speaking to the Star Tribune through a translator at his apartment in St. Cloud, Ahmed Adan said he had “no suspicion” that his son was involved in terrorist activity.
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The off duty officer who shot the suspect is Jason Falconer of Avon, Minnesota.
The knife-wielding attacker was wearing a security guard’s uniform when he began stabbing people at the mall at about 8 p.m. on Saturday night, authorities said.
Adnan Alasker, who was in town from Saudi Arabia to visit his son at St. Cloud State University, said he feels badly about the violence.
Local Muslim and Somali-American leaders publicly condemned the attack.
Following the Saturday stabbings, Lul Hersi stood outside the Crossroads Mall, waiting to find out if her son was among the victims of the man an ISIS-linked news agency praised as a “soldier of the Islamic state”.
A leader of the community, Abdul Kalane, said he fears how those online messages will translate into the real world, especially since Dahir Adan was his neighbor. They later moved up to the registers, he said. “The repercussions, the retaliation”, Kalane told the Guardian. “But when we heard the screaming, then we knew it was time to go”.
Media captionHow are American Muslims feeling ahead of the vote?
Not everyone has been accepting of the new arrivals.
Desi Spoden, 52, of Sauk Rapids and her husband were in the parking lot awaiting word from their 17-year-old daughter, Katy, who was inside the mall at Lady Foot Locker.
(St. Cloud Times/Jason Wachter via AP). He said that it was no longer necessary to join the group in Iraq and Syria, and that instead, aspiring jihadis should use whatever means they had to kill.
Law enforcement officials are now treating the attack as suspected terrorism. “Unfortunately, we’re here, but we’ve mentally prepared for this”.
Kleis says there were nine people who were hurt, not eight, as authorities previously reported.
She said her store has security cameras and a gate that would closed in case of an emergency.
“We condemn the acts of yesterday”. “Let’s unite as one Minnesota”. “Please let’s spread love instead of hate”.
If Saturday’s stabbings are ultimately deemed a terrorist act, it would be the first carried out by a Somali on USA soil, said Karen Greenburg, director of the Center on National Security at Fordham University School of Law.
Activist Hassan Yussuf said: “This incident should not be used to spread hate. It should be used to bring us together”.
“There is no shortage of domestic extremist groups and actors”, according to the analysis. For America, seized on the attack for political purposes. And why are officials not calling this a terror attack?
“We are also concerned about the potential backlash”, said Jaylani Hussein, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) chapter in Minnesota.
Three college freshmen who were shopping at a Minnesota mall when a man stabbed eight people say they saw two bloodied men stumble from a hallway. This is people who actually organize, who hold events, who hold meetings, who fundraise.
I’m sure the Somali community is horrified by the attack.
“I would hope that security would be increased everywhere”, said Whimer.
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“Whenever something as bad as this happens, it’s hard for things to be the same as they were”, the police chief said.
