A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
San Diego police are investigating what may have motivated two teenagers to shoot at a mosque and kill three people there.
LEILA FADEL, HOST:
The attack is being investigated as a hate crime. And police say the two suspects later shot themselves.
MARTÍNEZ: NPR's Juliana Kim is covering this from San Diego. Juliana, how did this start yesterday?
JULIANA KIM, BYLINE: So the San Diego Police Department received reports of an active shooter at the Islamic Center of San Diego shortly before noon. The center is the largest mosque in the county and runs a school. San Diego Police Chief Scott Wahl said yesterday that officers, upon arrival, saw three people dead in front of the center. A nearby landscaper was also shot at but not struck. And no children at the center were injured. Wahl said, around the same time, police received calls about gunshots at a second location. There, officers found two people inside a vehicle, both of whom were dead from self-inflicted gunshot wounds. Wahl believes the pair were responsible for the shooting at the center.
MARTÍNEZ: And what do we know about them and also the victims?
KIM: So authorities have yet to release the identities of the shooters. But we do know that they were two males, 17 and 18 years old. Police Chief Wahl said officers got a call earlier that morning from a mother whose son had ran away. She told authorities that she believed her son was suicidal and that her car and weapons were missing. Wahl said officers were sent to locations that they believed might be threatened, but there was no specific threat made to the Islamic center.
The motive has yet to be determined. But Wahl said authorities are investigating this as a hate crime. He added that, quote, "there was definitely hate rhetoric involved." End quote. Though, he didn't explain further. Terms of the victims, authorities have also not yet released names to the public. But Wahl did mention that one of the victims was a security guard at the center.
MARTÍNEZ: Yeah, kids were evacuated from the school inside the mosque and then brought to a nearby church. And, Juliana, you were there. Tell us what you saw.
KIM: Yeah. I mean, I saw a lot of families waiting hours to reunite with their children and head home. Monsor Barbak (ph) was waiting for his 9-year-old nephew. He told me he was shocked by what happened. At the same time. He's always been worried about the possibility of an attack like this.
MONSOR BARBAK: It's always in your head that it's going to happen someday.
KIM: You know, when I asked him what he meant by that, he said he felt that places of worship have been increasingly under attack.
BARBAK: A synagogue was attacked not long ago, too. So it doesn't matter what faith. Any attack on anybody is not acceptable, yeah.
KIM: In 2019, there was a shooting at a synagogue in a San Diego suburb. One person was killed and three people were injured.
MARTÍNEZ: What about reactions from San Diego's Muslim community? What are you hearing?
KIM: Yeah, the Islamic Center of San Diego's imam, Taha Hassane, spoke briefly at a press conference yesterday. And he said...
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
TAHA HASSANE: This is something that we have never expected to take place. But at the same time, the religious intolerance and the hate, unfortunately, that exist in our nation is unprecedented.
KIM: He ended his remarks by asking the public to practice tolerance as his community mourns.
MARTÍNEZ: That's NPR's Juliana Kim joining us from San Diego. Thank you very much.
KIM: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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