We are glad that the nine victims of the St. Cloud attack are all alive and likely to recover.
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Following the St. Cloud mall attack Saturday evening, Fox News desperately tried to spin the incident into anti-immigrant propaganda.
Dahir Ahmed Adan, the Somali American named as the perpetrator of the weekend stabbing rampage in Minnesota, was a high-achieving student with no known history of violence.
Rosedale Center would not disclose changes in security plans, though a mall spokesperson said staff work closely with the Roseville Police Department to ensure safety.
In neighboring New Jersey, an explosion went off in a garbage can on the route of a Marine Corps charity run.
The news group said the attack had been launched in response to the Islamic State’s “calls to target citizens of countries belonging to the crusader coalition”.
While authorities have not yet identified the stabber, they say he had three previous encounters with police.
“That larger social movement of this global Jihad is not just ISIS and they have fed into the literature that is there on the Internet, the videos and all these things that inspire people to do these acts, and if ISIS goes away, they won’t feed into that anymore, but what they’ve done so far is there”, said Kuznar.
Jama Alimad, 65, a prominent figure in St. Cloud’s sizeable Somali community, described Adan as a, “typical American kid, outgoing, nice”.
Mohamoud Mohamed, a spokesman for the Central Minnesota Islamic Center in St. Cloud, stressed during the press conference Sunday that the central Minnesota Muslim community has no relationship with ISIS or any other “Islamic terrorist group”. Since 2007, dozens of people from the Minneapolis-St. Since 2014, nine Somali-Americans from Minnesota were either convicted at trial or pleaded guilty in a plot to join ISIS by traveling to Syria.
“I watched a gentleman with two children in his hands running in front of the attacker, at that point the officer arrived and he then eliminated that threat”, recalls Kleis. Stopping the recruiting has been a high priority, with law enforcement investing countless hours in community outreach and the state participating in a federal project created to combat radical messages. This incident would be the first terrorist attack carried by a Somali on US soil, if, in fact, the stabbings are ultimately deemed an act of terrorism.
Authorities are treating Saturday’s stabbings at Crossroads Mall, as a possible act of terrorism, in part because an I. It was not immediately clear if the extremist group had planned the attack or even knew about it beforehand.
Adan, a private security firm employee with a good reputation in St. Cloud’s Somali community, was intent on purchasing the newly released iPhone 7, according to Haji Yussuf, a local Somali community leader who has been in contact with the man’s family. Ahmed Adan said his son was born in Kenya but was Somali and had lived in the USA for 15 years.
Some in Minnesota’s Somali community have long expressed suspicion of law enforcement and charge that Somali youth are stigmatised as terrorists, and baited by Federal Bureau of Investigation informants.
The man, whom his father has identified as 22-year-old Dahir Adan, was fatally shot by an off-duty officer at Crossroads Center mall.
Anderson has said the man began attacking people right after entering the mall, stabbing people in several spots. “This is a tragedy that affects all people in St. Cloud, and this is an opportunity for our communities to come together”.
Jason Falconer, an off-duty police officer from nearby Avon, killed the man. He protected others from being injured and potentially loss of life. Sydney Weires, 18, and two of her friends were shopping when the stabbings happened.
“No one is talking right now”, one man said from his doorway.
Yussuf noted that the mall incident occurred amid a contentious United States presidential election, with its debates about restricting the flow of immigrants, and Somalis worry it could threaten the amity forged between them and their neighbors. “Someone has a knife, ‘” Weires said.
Avon police chief Corey Nellis said Mr Falconer owned a firing range and was the city’s firearms instructor. The governor also said President Obama has been briefed on the situation and is impressed with the cooperation among federal, state and local law enforcement during this investigation. No one answered the door Sunday at a home address listed for Falconer, and voicemail for a telephone listing was not accepting new messages.
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Nellis told a news conference on Monday that Falconer needed time to cope.
