North Carolina teen indicted on murder charges for livestreaming San Diego mosque shooting

A North Carolina teenager was indicted Monday on three murder counts and one conspiracy charge for her alleged role in the May 18 shooting at the Islamic Center of San Diego that left three men dead. Prosecutors say the high-school student livestreamed the attack using footage captured by the shooters' helmet-mounted GoPro cameras and posted the perpetrators' manifesto online, thereby aiding and abetting the crime.

Forsyth County District Attorney Jim O’Neill told a news conference that the teen, who was not present at the scene, knew the shooters planned additional attacks on a local Jewish temple and a predominantly Black high school, plans that were aborted when the gunmen died by suicide shortly after the mosque shooting. O’Neill said North Carolina law allows a person to be held criminally responsible even without directly committing the violent act.

Federal and local investigators spent months gathering evidence, conducting more than 100 interviews, executing 30 search warrants and reviewing over four million electronic messages. Special Agent in Charge Reid Davis of the FBI’s Charlotte Field Office said the teen was radicalized through the same extremist online networks as the shooters and communicated with them via the encrypted messaging app Signal.

"The law in North Carolina is clear: A person may be guilty of a crime, although he or she personally does not do any of the acts necessary to constitute the crime," O’Neill said.

"You have to know what your kids are doing, who they’re talking to, what they’re getting into," he added, urging parents to monitor their children's online activity.

The indictment marks the first time a North Carolina minor has faced adult murder charges for facilitating a mass-shooting through digital means. Authorities hope the case will underscore the responsibility to report violent threats and provide some closure to the victims' families in San Diego.