He had nothing more than a minor traffic citation on his record.
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The man who stopped the knife yielding lunatic at the Crossroads Center mall in St. Cloud, Minnesota, on Saturday has been identified as Jason Falconer, an NRA-certified firearms instructor and avid 3-gun competitor.
St. Cloud Police say a suspect stabbed 9 people throughout the mall before an off-duty officer confronted him in Macy’s and shot and killed him.
When confronted, Mordal said he told Adan, “please don’t do this”.
Adan’s family has been dumbfounded by his sudden burst of violence, as they can not find a link between him and a terrorist group. “We understand in St. Cloud there is more anti-Muslim organizing and we hope they do not use this incident to divide [our community]”.
President Barack Obama said this morning that the FBI is investigating the incident “as a potential act of terrorism”.
ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack, and called Adan a soldier of theirs – a statement that baffled authorities here.
A victim of the Minnesota mall stabber claimed by ISIS survived after the attacker’s knife went through his hat and almost punctured his brain.
“He looked just blank in the eyes like he wasn’t even there”, Schliep said.
Police have said the knifeman “made references to Allah” during his rampage and asked victims whether they were Muslim before attacking.
Adan, who was born in Kenya, and his family left Somalia as refugees and settled in Fargo in the mid-1990s when he was 1-year-old, said Fowzia Adde, a local Somali leader. He was a tutor.
All nine victims stabbed at the Crossroads Center mall in St. Cloud survived. A statement from Securitas said he resigned from the company in June.
And right now, we’re trying to get to the bottom of his motivations. As investigators viewed additional security video of the incident, they discovered a tenth victim – a 21-year-old man who had not sought out medical attention or notified authorities of his injuries, police said.
Mohamoud Mohamed, a spokesman for the Central Minnesota Islamic Center in St. Cloud, stressed during the press conference Sunday that the central Minnesota Muslim community has no relationship with ISIS or any other “Islamic terrorist group”.
Security experts argue that the problem with ISIS and with any radical extremist group is its influence.
The motive of Saturday’s attack is still unclear, but FBI Special Agent-in-Charge Rick Thornton said Sunday it was being investigated as a “potential act of terrorism”.
A Somali community advocate who spoke with Adan’s parents said he was going to the mall to pick up an iPhone.
A mere two hours later, by 8 p.m., Dahir Aden was dead, after lunging at an off-duty officer, according to authorities.
If the stabbings are ultimately deemed a terrorist act, it would be the first carried out by a Somali on USA soil.
President Obama said that the Minnesota attack was not believed to be connected to suspected bomber Ahmad Rahami’s planting explosives in NY and New Jersey.
Minnesota has the nation’s largest Somali population, an estimated 57,000 people.
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While the president and governor offered to provide whatever investigative assistance St. Cloud needs, Dayton said: “I implore the citizens of St. Cloud and citizens throughout Minnesota to rise above this tragic incident and to remember our common humanity, our shared citizenship and our shared desires to live together peacefully and constructively for the benefit of ourselves and our families and our communities”.
