North Carolina teen charged with murder for livestreaming San Diego mosque shooting
A 17-year-old from North Carolina has been indicted on murder and conspiracy charges for recording and publishing the livestream and manifesto of the May 18 attack on the Islamic Center of San Diego.
A North Carolina teenager has been charged with murder by aiding and abetting after prosecutors say she recorded a livestream of the May 18 shooting at the Islamic Center of San Diego and later posted the attackers' manifesto. The grand jury indictment was announced by Forsyth County District Attorney Jim O'Neill, who said the teen faces three murder counts and one conspiracy charge under state law, which treats an aider and abettor as equally responsible as the principal offender.
"The thought of her going back to school, with the weekend approaching, holy days approaching, we didn't know what she was capable of," O'Neill told reporters at a news conference.
Investigators say the attack was carried out by two male teenagers, aged 17 and 18, who opened fire inside the mosque before killing themselves. A security guard, Amin Abdullah, exchanged gunfire with the shooters and initiated a lockdown that protected about 140 children inside. Abdullah and two worshippers, Mansour Kaziha and Nader Awad, were killed.
The gunmen used GoPro-style helmet cameras to record the assault and intended to livestream the carnage. Prosecutors say they also planned attacks on a local Jewish temple and a predominantly African American high school. The pair possessed an arsenal of roughly 30 firearms and a crossbow, allegedly taken from a parent’s collection, and left behind writings with racist, antisemitic, and white-supremacist themes that referenced the 2019 Christchurch mosque shootings.