People stand near the entrance of Crossroads Center mall in St. Cloud, Minn., as officials investigate multiple stabbings the.
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An assailant at a mall in St. Cloud, Minn., stabbed at least nine people before the suspect was shot dead by an off-duty police officer, authorities said.
Nine people were hurt in a knife rampage at a Minnesota mall Saturday night in which the attacker made references to Allah, authorities said.
Leaders of Minnesota’s Somali community, the largest in the nation, were quick to condemn the attack. In a statement the governor said “I am deeply grateful to the heroic law enforcement officer whose swift response prevented an even worse attack”.
“We’re now investigating this as a potential act of terrorism, and I do say potential”, Federal Bureau of Investigation agent Richard Thornton, of the agency’s Minneapolis office, said at the press conference.
But after the mass killings by Islamic State-inspired terrorists in Orlando, Fla., and San Bernardino, Calif., as well as the major attacks in France and Belgium, it’s clear we are in the middle of an ongoing ISIS offensive, security experts say.
The mall was put on a lockdown following the attack and would be closed until further notice.
Anderson said police had three previous encounters with the attacker, mostly for minor traffic violations. Anderson said Falconer fired as the attacker was lunging at him with the knife, and continued to engage him as the attacker got up three times. The suspect is believed to be dead, St. Cloud Police Sgt. Jason Burke told the St. Cloud Times.
Of the nine people stabbed, St. Cloud Mayor Dave Kleis said, three people were still hospitalized, including one person who remains in life-threatening condition.
The victims were male and female, Kleis said and ranged in age from mid-50s to a 15-year old girl.
But at a news conference Sunday afternoon, the mayor and police chief praised Falconer, a part-time officer and a former police chief of Albany, Minnesota, for stepping into action. A suspicious device was found a few blocks away and safely removed. 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. But both New York governor Andrew Cuomo and New York City mayor Bill de Blasio said there was no indication it was linked to global terrorism.
“An armed suspect entered the Crossroads Mall”. Paul area have traveled overseas to join the Islamic State or al Shabaab, a Somalia-based militant group, U.S. prosecutors said.
“People came running around the corner and I freaked out because I thought it was a terrorist attack or something because I saw a lot of people, so I grabbed my kids”, he told the Times. All of a sudden these people started running. “I ran as much as I could and I heard someone yell ‘Stop!”
The couple were unharmed and said they helped another woman who was running from the scene to her vehicle. St. Cloud is a city of around 65,800 people around 65 miles northwest of Minneapolis.
A spokesman for St Cloud State University said he had not been enrolled since the spring term.
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No one answered the door late Sunday at a home address listed for Falconer, and a voicemail box for a telephone listing was full and not accepting new messages.
