The investigation into the St. Cloud mall stabbing, which injured 10 people and forced a lockdown of the area, is now being turned over to the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force. The FBI said it was investigating the attack “as a potential act of terrorism”, but officials in Minnesota said they had found no direct links.
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Chief William Blair Anderson was on “Fox & Friends” on Monday to talk about the attack, which left eight people injured, when cohost Steve Doocy tried to tie the incident to Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s call for “extreme vetting” of immigrants.
But inside, police said, Adan went on a chaotic stabbing rampage, injuring 10 people before an off-duty police officer shot him in a Macy’s store.
None of the victims suffered life-threatening injuries.
On Saturday night, a man identified by police as Dahir Adan, a 20-year-old Somali-American, entered the mall wearing the uniform of a security guard.
Residents here were stunned by the attack, during which, victims told police, Adan referenced Allah and asked one shopper if he was Muslim. An Islamic State-run news agency claimed Sunday that the attacker was a “soldier of the Islamic State” who had heeded the group’s calls for attacks in countries that are part of a US -led anti-IS coalition, but it wasn’t immediately known whether the extremist group had planned the attack or knew about it beforehand. The group claimed Adan was a “soldier” in the immediate aftermath of the attack. He played soccer with friends at a St. Cloud high school, studied information systems at a nearby state university and worked as a security guard at an appliance factory, 2 miles from home.
Ahmed Adan said his son was born in Kenya but was Somali and had lived in the USA for 15 years.
President Obama told reporters on Monday that authorities did not believe there was any link between the Minnesota attack and the weekend’s bombings in NY and New Jersey.
Last year, St. Cloud school officials met with Somali parents, community elders and students after Somali-American students walked out to protest their treatment.
Minnesota has the nation’s largest Somali population, an estimated 57,000 people.
“We actually work very well not just with our East African community, but all of our community”, Anderson said.
“It’s going to be tough times”. Authorities haven’t identified the attacker, but his father, Ahmed Adan, told the (Minneapolis) Star Tribune his son’s name through an interpreter and local activists also identified Dahir Adan as Somali.
Adan, whose surname was initially spelled by news organizations as Aden, moved with his family from Kenya to the United States at age 2 and grew up in St. Cloud, said Abdul Kulane, of the Central Minnesota Community Empowerment Organization.
Five minutes after authorities received the first 911 call, Jason Falconer, a part-time officer in the city of Avon who was there shopping, began shooting the attacker as he was lunging at him with the knife, Anderson said, and continued to engage him as the attacker got up three times.
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The mall reopened Monday after being closed Sunday.
