Adan’s family, who said they were committed to cooperating with law enforcement, also asked St Cloud’s residents “not to rush to judgement or conclusions”, their attorney said.
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Rick Thornton, special agent in charge for the Federal Bureau of Investigation in Minnesota, told a Monday press conference that investigators would be looking at Adan’s media accounts and electronic devices – such as laptops or mobile phones – in an attempt to “peel back the onion and figure out what motivated this individual to commit the horrific act”.
Moorhead Mayor Del Rae Williams said she worries about what may come from news media highlighting the attack. Authorities are treating Saturday¿s stabbings at Crossroads Mall, as a possible act of terrorism, in part because an Islamic State-run news agency claimed 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. IS has encouraged so-called “lone wolf” attacks. In the past, IS has claimed attacks that are not believed to have been planned by its central leadership.
Strictly following protocol, Falconer fired at the attacker, who was a graduate of Apollo High School and former student at St. Cloud State University.
Abdikarin Mohamed, a nine-year neighbor of Adan, said he also was shocked that the peaceful, quiet man ended up dead after stabbing mall shoppers.
LSSND said it will work with ethnic and religious groups, city leaders and law enforcement officials to ensure the stabbing attack does not drive the community apart.
Police responded to reports of several stabbings at the Crossroads Mall at around 8:30 p.m. local time. People who knew him say he was brought to the U.S. as a child.
Authorities said Adan, the attacker, had three previous encounters with police. The officer, Jason Falconer, is being hailed as a hero.
Albany Police Chief Osvaldo Carbajal, who took over for Falconer more than three years ago, said people who want to protect themselves should not stop with getting a gun and a concealed weapon permit. Officials say the suspect made references to Allah, and asked at least one person if they were Muslim before he assaulted them.
Earlier, two Somali community leaders in contact with the man’s family told CNN that Adan had been acting strangely before the incident.
Crossroads Center, is a shopping mall in St. Cloud, Minnesota, United States, and is the largest mall in outstate Minnesota.
Minnesota has the nation’s largest Somali population, an estimated 57,000 people.
Federal investigators have tracked the recruitment of potential ISIS fighters in Minnesota. Since 2014, nine Somali-Americans from that state were either convicted at trial or pleaded guilty in a plot to join ISIS by traveling to Syria.
Experts say that if Saturday’s stabbings are ultimately deemed a terrorist act, it would be the first carried out by a Somali on US soil.
Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton said on Monday that President Barack Obama called him to speak about the incident and that the President was briefed on the Saturday attack. A suspicious device was found a few blocks away and safely removed. There was no immediate indication that the incidents were linked.
Crossroads Center was closed Sunday but will reopen Monday, said Kevin Berry, spokesman for the Chicago-based company that operates the mall.
Adan’s stabbing victims included “seven men, one woman, and a 15-year-old girl”, according to the Associated Press, which added that all of them had been treated for their injuries and released by Monday afternoon. Court records show he owes $342.
The contractor assigned him to the factory complex of Electrolux, the Swedish-based maker of refrigerators and other home appliances, which inhabits a vast compound of white warehouses in St. Cloud ringed by barbed-wire fences alongside a railroad track.
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“All of a sudden I heard ‘pop pop pop, ‘” Harley said.
