The security guard at the heart of a shooting at a mosque in San Diego has been hailed as a hero after engaging fire with the attackers.
Amin Abdullah, also known to friends as Brian Climax, who opened fire on the two gunmen as they ran past him in the parking lot of the mosque complex and then paused to return fire.
Mr Abdullah was fatally shot in the parking lot, along with two other men who helped distract the suspects after they entered the building and drew them back outside as law enforcement officers were closing in on the scene en masse.
In the midst of the confrontation, it was Mr Abdullah who transmitted the radio call that activated security lockdown protocols at the mosque, which police chiefs also credited with preventing further bloodshed at the complex.
San Diego Police Chief Scott Wahl said the gunfight and the security alert gave others in the building time to take shelter behind locked doors.
Minutes before officers from around California's second-most-populous city converged on the mosque, the two suspects, aged 17 and 18, fled the complex by car.
They were found dead in their vehicle a short time later several blocks away, apparently from self-inflicted gunshot wounds, police said.
Mr Wahl said all three victims, including an elder leader of the mosque community, played a role in preventing more lives from being lost, but he singled out Mr Abdullah for special praise of his "heroic action," adding that at first, "I had no idea how heroic those actions were".
Amin Abdullah was hailed as a hero
|ISLAMIC CENTER OF SAN DIEGO
Mr Whal said: "His actions, without a doubt, delayed, distracted and ultimately deterred those two individuals from gaining access to the greater areas of the mosque where as many as 140 kids were within 15 feet of these suspects."
Taha Hassane, the imam and director of the Islamic Center, called all three of the victims "our martyrs and our heroes".
Police and FBI officials have said that they are investigating the attack as a hate crime but have declined to offer details about a possible motive.
FBI special agent Mark Remily said on Tuesday that one of the suspects did leave behind a manifesto, but he declined to characterise it in detail.
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San Diego Police Chief Scott Wahl paid tribute to the security guard
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The Islamic Center of San Diego remains closed
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"Anti-Islamic writings" were found in a vehicle connected to the two suspects, according to a Department of Justice official with knowledge of the investigation.
The alleged gunmen have been identified as Caleb Vasquez, 18, and Cain Clark, 17, the official told reporters on Tuesday.
Clark's mother is cooperating with authorities, the DoJ official added.
Officers sprang into action after a call from one of the boy's mothers, who described her son as suicidal and said he had run off with her vehicle and three of her guns, according to police.
Police initially raced to a local shopping mall and the boy's school before calls came in about the shooting at the mosque.
A heavy police presence remains at the scene in San Diego | REUTERSOdai Shanah, nine, whose mother emigrated from Gaza and settled in Southern California two decades ago, was among dozens of children forced to huddle in classrooms when the deadly gunfire erupted
Shanah recalled hearing a barrage of gunshots coming from outside the walls of the complex, which also houses an Islamic day school, adding he and his classmates were quickly ushered into a closet where they crowded together, trembling in fear as 12 to 16 more shots rang out.
At some point after the shooting ceased, they heard members of a police SWAT team shouting from outside the classroom, "'OK, open up,' then they opened the door," the boy recounted.
As they were escorted out of the building by police officers, "we saw a bunch of bad stuff, people laying down and yeah, bad stuff," Shanah said, using a phrase that he acknowledged meant that he was referring to the victims' bodies.