“We’ve got eight victims who were assaulted here in our mall. things wont be the same here”, Anderson said.
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Authorities didn’t identify the attacker.
“I mean, not only just here in the mall”.
Schliep tells WCCO-TV that the attacker stabbed him in the head and Schliep fell to the ground. The FBI says investigators view the attacks as a “potential act of terrorism”.
He owns a firing range and firearms training facility called Tactical Advantage.
Since Falconer has not been on the police schedule for some time, he has not been put on administrative leave. But he declined to call it an act of terrorism, saying the motive was still unknown.
Falconer was not at the news conference.
Leaders of the Somali-American community in St. Cloud gathered Sunday with Adan’s family and issued a statement of sympathy for his family and the nine victims of the attack.
Gov. Mark Dayton said at a Monday news conference said the state will help however it can and asked citizens of St. Cloud and the state to “rise above” the incident.
In a phone interview on Sunday morning, Mayor Dave Kleis said the mall, Crossroads Center, was an active crime scene and would remain closed. The attack ended when the off-duty officer shot and killed the knife-welding attacker.
According to the Associated Press on Sunday, an Islamic State-run news agency claimed the suspect was a “soldier of the Islamic State”, saying the attacker had heeded calls from the extremist group for attacks in countries that are part of a USA -led anti-IS coalition.
“We are now investigating this as a potential act of terrorism”, the FBI agent in charge of the investigation, Rick Thornton, told reporters.
The mall is set to reopen tomorrow.
The suspect had a history of minor traffic violations, Anderson said, but “wasn’t under any surveillance by our agency”. St. Cloud University confirms he attended school there, but has not been enrolled since spring 2016. He says all people are brothers and equal regardless of their religion.
“Everyone was screaming and everything was just starting to get really chaotic”, says Ashley Bayne, who was inside the mall when the attack happened.
“We had an additional individual who was self-admitted at Long Prairie hospital, so there were nine victims”. Hours before that, a pipe bomb exploded in Seaside Park, New Jersey, shortly before thousands of runners were due to participate in a charity 5K race. She later called and said she was safe in a secured area.
“You need to be vigilant and make sure there’s a full investigation”, Kleis said. They said the suspect – identified by his father as 22-year-old Dahir A. Adan – does not represent them, and they expressed fear about a backlash.
Adan went to college in St. Cloud and worked for a private security firm at the time of the attack, the community leaders told CNN.
Anderson also said the suspect made at least one reference to Allah during the attack and asked at least one person whether they were Muslim. It isn’t clear whether Adan was radicalized. “Hearing the possibility of the number of people who could have been injured.it’s really scary”.
Adonis Samuels, 42, St. Cloud, was also outside the mall where his wife Roxanne is a manager at Clinique at Macy’s. “Clearly a hero”, Mayor Kleis says.
Seven of the wounded were treated and released, while one victim remains hospitalized. He appeared to be wielding a kitchen knife. Adan was shot dead by an off-duty police officer.
Sources added that the police announced that eight people were injured and sent to St. Cloud Hospital, without giving any further information except that their injuries are not life-threatening. The possibility of an attack on US soil has been a major concern for law enforcement.
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At a news conference Sunday, FBI Special Agent-in-Charge Rick Thornton said the attack was being investigated as a possible act of terrorism and that agents were still digging into the attacker’s background and possible motives.
