The mayor and police chief also praised off-duty Avon police officer Jason Falconer for killing the suspect as the assailant threatened other people in the mall attack. Of the nine victims – seven men, a woman and a 15-year-old girl – three remained hospitalized, officials said.
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An ISIS-affiliated news outlet claimed that the attacker was “a soldier of the Islamic State”, according to NBC News terrorism analyst Flashpoint Intelligence, a global security firm.
According to Police and eyewitnesses, the man entered Crossroads Mall, wearing a private security company uniform, around 8PM ET on Saturday night.
Mr Anderson said police have no evidence to believe more than one person was involved in the attack.
I ask everyone in the St. Cloud area and throughout Minnesota to rise above this atrocity and act to make religious and racial tolerance one of the ways in which Minnesotans again lead our country.
He told the newspaper he wasn’t hurt and declined to talk further, citing the ongoing investigation for not saying more. As of Sunday morning, the mall was on lockdown and will be closed indefinitely.
The news of the St. Cloud mall was shocking to the friends, relatives, and the community of the deceased. Authorities have yet to confirm whether there is a connection between the suspect and ISIS, however. The eighth was admitted, but no other details about that person’s condition were released. An off-duty police officer confronted the man during the attack and shot and killed him.
An FBI official says investigators are viewing an attack at a Minnesota mall in which a man stabbed nine people as a possible act of terrorism.
Ahmed Adan, who is Somali, says his son came to the US 15 years ago and was a student at St. Cloud Technical and Community College.
“Honestly, last night once everything had happened it still felt unreal, it didn’t seem like something that would happen at our mall”, said Bayne, the JCPenney employee.
That came after the Islamic State militant group, through the Amaq News Agency, called the suspect “a soldier of the Islamic State”, adding he “carried out the attack in response to calls to target the citizens of countries belonging to the crusader coalition”.
He said the stabbings occurred in several places within the mall, including corridors, businesses and common areas.
Rick Thorton, an FBI Agent from Minneapolis, stated that the “FBI is now investigating this as a potential act of terrorism”.
It was not immediately clear if the extremist group had planned the attack or even knew about it beforehand. IS has encouraged so-called “lone wolf” attacks.
In a media release, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) described the attacker as a “young Somali man in his mid 20s who worked as a security guard (not at the mall) and was a college student”, Buzzfeed News reported. “It has also claimed past attacks that are not believed to have been planned by its central leadership”.
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The attack in St. Cloud, a city of about 65,000 people 60 miles (95 kilometers) northwest of Minneapolis, began shortly after an explosion in a crowded New York City neighborhood injured 29 people. But today there is one thing we all share: “We are thankful for the bravery of the off-duty officer and first responders who went beyond the call of duty to save lives”.
