“Thanks to the quick action of a fearless off-duty police officer, the suspect was killed and we avoided more people being hurt”, Obama said of the officer, who works for the police department in nearby Avon, Minnesota.
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The Amaq News Agency posted a statement online, the latest in a series of ISIS-related media outlets claiming responsibility for purported attacks carried out by individuals across Europe and beyond.
In recent years, federal investigators have tracked the recruitment of potential ISIS fighters in Minnesota.
Kleis said it’s been a trying time for the city and said he has tremendous respect for the off-duty officer who shot and killed the attacker. “There was a bunch of people running into the JCPenney mall entrance, and they were just screaming that someone was going around the mall stabbing people, and that there was blood everywhere”.
The city’s police chief said the man reportedly made at least one reference to Allah and asked a victim if he or she was Muslim before attacking.
Falconer is the former police chief in Albany, about 15 miles northwest of St. Cloud, and the president and owner of a firing range and firearms training facility, according to his LinkedIn profile.
The attack Saturday sent shockwaves through Minnesota’s large Somali population.
Officers from St. Cloud, Waite Park, Cold Spring and the Minnesota State Patrol, as well as Gold Cross ambulance and St. Cloud Fire Department crews were on the scene.
The stabbings at a Minnesota mall, attributed to a young Somali man, are being treated by federal investigators as a potential act of terrorism after the Islamic State claimed the suspect had heeded its calls for attacks in countries that are part of a US -led anti-Islamic State coalition.
Ryan Schliep, one of 10 people who suffered wounds that were not life-threatening before the attacker was fatally shot, told WCCO-TV that the man “just walked right at me” before striking quickly and penetrating the skin of his scalp.
Somali-American leaders hold a press conference Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016, in St. Cloud, Minn., to address the stabbing and shooting incident that happened Saturday at Crossroads Center Mall.
Local police had three previous encounters with the suspect, most for minor traffic violations, St. Cloud Police Chief William Blair Anderson said, though he did not name the attacker.
Police wounded and captured a 28-year-old Afghan-born American in connection with those attacks.
Ahmed Said, executive director of the Somali American Relations Council, said it remained unclear if religion motivated the attack. He said he had “no suspicion” that his son had been involved in terrorist activity, the newspaper reported. As of Sunday morning, six of the nine victims had been treated and released from a local hospital and all were expected to survive their injuries.
Two sources told Fox News that the Minnesota attacker was not known to federal law enforcement prior to the stabbings.
Earlier on Saturday, a bomb exploded at a charity race in New Jersey.
“I implore the citizens of St. Cloud and the citizens of Minnesota to rise above this incident and remember our common humanity”, Dayton said.
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“Let us unite as one Minnesota”, she said.
