People stand near the entrance on the north side of Crossroads Center mall between Macy’s and Target as officials investigate a reported multiple stabbing incident on Saturday in St. Cloud, Minn.
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“St. Cloud is a very resilient community”.
Ahmed Said, executive director of the Somali American Relations Council, said they don’t know whether religion motivated Adan, “but we know he is a Somali”.
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One of the victims of the Minnesota mall stabbings has said the man who carried out the attack showed no emotion and his eyes looked blank.
Ten bystanders suffered injuries when Dahir Ahmed Adan, 20, began stabbing people at the shopping center.
All eight stabbing victims had been released from St. Cloud Hospital by Sunday night.
The motive of Saturday’s attack is still unclear, but FBI Special Agent-in- Charge Rick Thornton has said it is being investigated as a “potential act of terrorism”.
“If I was going to ask anyone to fire live rounds in a crowded mall, I would trust his abilities over anybody’s”, Chief Nellis said.
Over the weekend, local newspapers in Minnesota, including the Minneapolis StarTribune and St. Cloud Times, identified the attacker as a member of the Somali community from the central part of the state.
“We can not give Isis and other terrorist organisations more air-time and propaganda without real facts”, said Jaylani Hussein, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations’ Minnesota chapter.
“He worked part-time as a private security officer”, Kulane told a Sunday news conference.
Panicked crowds gathered outside the Crossroade Centre mall in Minnesota following the attack Lockdown. We express our deepest sympathy and condolences to all those injured and others who were impacted as a result of the incident at the Crossroads mall.
The family says, as they mourn the death of their son Dahir Adan, they are committed to fully cooperating, within the limits of the law, with law enforcement agencies.
Dahir Adan was killed by an off-duty police officer minutes into the attack Saturday night at the mall in St. Cloud.
The area is home to a large Somali population.
“It’s going to be tough times”.
“People really need to be aware of their surroundings and especially in Sioux Falls we have a great community and we don’t have the big huge problems but you just never know when something could happen”, Clemens says.
St. Cloud has a large community of Muslim immigrants from the Horn of Africa. Few Somali migrants in America have reportedly joined Al-Shabab and ISIS.
Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton planned to meet with St. Cloud’s mayor and other local officials Monday morning to discuss the case.
The group of 20-plus leaders from Muslim and Christian faiths used the press conference as an opportunity to express support for victims and to support the various faith communities that are grieving.
If the stabbings are ultimately deemed a terrorist act, it would be the first carried out by a Somali on US soil.
He says Adan left the apartment he shared with his father at about 7 p.m.
Adan, whose surname was initially spelled by news organizations as Aden, moved with his family from Kenya to the U.S.at age two and grew up in St. Cloud, said Abdul Kulane, of the Central Minnesota Community Empowerment Organization. His profile also says he focuses on firearms and permit-to-carry training, and teaches “decision shooting” to law enforcement students at St. Cloud State University.
A community activist says a man who went on a stabbing rampage at a Minnesota mall that injured 10 people had gone to the mall to pick up a pre-ordered iPhone.
The incident involving 22-year-old Adan surfaced on Monday as authorities conducted an investigation concerning Adan’s motif and background.
The officer who shot him was identified as Jason Falconer from the nearby Avon police department.
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Falconer is a former police chief of Albany, Minnesota and now works part time as an officer in Avon.
