The mayor of the US city of San Diego sharply rebuked Islamophobia Monday after teenage gunmen opened fire at a local mosque, killing three people in what authorities have said is being investigated as a hate crime.
"Hate has no home in San Diego. Islamophobia has no home in San Diego. An attack on any San Diegan is an attack on all San Diegans, and we will not stand for it," Todd Gloria told reporters at a press conference hours after the fatal shooting.
"Let there be no misunderstanding for anyone who would seek to bring this kind of violence to this city: you will be met with the full force of our law enforcement partnerships. Anyone who seeks to do harm here will understand the response will be swift, and you will be brought to justice," he added.
Three people, including a security guard, were fatally shot at the Islamic Center of San Diego on Monday. The identities of the victims have not yet been released.
San Diego Police Department Chief Scott Wahl said that as officers were responding to the scene, police received calls of another shooting nearby and found a landscaper who may have been shot in a helmet he was wearing "that deflected and saved his life."
"A couple blocks away from there, we also received a call where a community member reported our two suspects in a vehicle, and it appeared they had gunshot wounds, and upon our arrival, we determined they were deceased," he said.
Law enforcement officials earlier said the suspects died from self-inflicted gunshot wounds.
The suspects' identities have not been released, but Wahl said one of the suspects’ mothers had called police Monday morning to report her child as a runaway whom she believed to be suicidal. Additional information provided by the mother "led us to believe that there was a bigger threat picture here that we needed to consider," said Wahl.
That included information from the mother, who said her son took three weapons from her, as well as a note she discovered, Wahl said. Authorities declined to specify what kind of information was contained in the note, but Wahl said they have found evidence of what he described as a "general hate kind of speech that I think covered a wide gamut."
"I don't want to go into any of the specifics at this point. Again, we are still actively investigating this as we speak, but it was more generalized," he said.
CNN reported that multiple law enforcement officials said the "suicide note" contained "writings about racial pride" and that there was "hate speech" written on one of the weapons that were used.
Wahl said the suspected gunmen were aged 17 and 18 years old. He maintained "there was no specific threat, especially no specific threat to the Islamic Center."
Imam Taha Hassane, who leads the Islamic Center of San Diego, made an impassioned appeal for the country to rise above what he described as "unprecedented" hatred.
"My community is mourning. This is something that we have never expected to take place, but at the same time, the religious intolerance and the hate, unfortunately, that exists in our nation is unprecedented," he said.
"All of us, we are responsible for spreading the culture of tolerance, the culture of love. All of us, we are responsible from whatever position we have, as parents, as media people, as elected officials, as law enforcement, as religious leaders. All of us, we can do something to protect our nation, to protect our society," he added.
Erbil Atay, a local resident, told Anadolu that he was supposed to meet with the mosque’s imam Monday but was running late. If that were not the case, he said, “I would have most likely been present during the incident as well. We would have done whatever we could. But, as it happened, it was not to be."
Atay, who has lived in San Diego for 30 years and runs a paint business, said there had been no specific threats directed at the school or the Islamic Center, but said there was a rock throwing incident roughly a decade ago.
“Bulletproof windows had previously been installed on the wall in the school courtyard. But there was no specific threat,” he said.
*Can Hasasu contributed to this report from Washington
