The three people killed by two shooters at a San Diego mosque were beloved pillars of the community, and died while saving roughly 140 children who were in the building at the time of the attack, authorities have said.
All three men were shot while trying to delay and distract the two teen gunmen who barged into the Islamic Centre of San Diego – in Southern California, near the Mexico–United States border – on Monday, San Diego Police Chief Scott Wahl said.
The Imam of the Islamic Centre of San Diego, Taha Hassane, identified the three victims as Amin Abdullah, 51, Nadir Awad, 57, and Mansour Kaziha, 78, who was known as Abu Ezz.
“We call them our brothers in the community. We call them our martyrs and our heroes,” Hassane said.
The three men saved lives
Authorities described how the shooting unfolded based on security camera footage at the mosque, which is the largest in San Diego and attracts thousands of people from across the region during major holidays.
In addition to hosting prayers five times a day, it also provides dinners and breakfasts during the Ramadan fasting period, hosts a school for Arabic language and Islamic academic studies, and has a store inside.
When the two shooters, aged 17 and 18, entered, they passed Abdullah, seemingly without notice, Wahl said. Abdullah, who was a security guard for the mosque for about a decade, quickly confronted them and exchanged gunfire.
At the same time, he grabbed his radio and warned everyone to go into lockdown. As the shooters made their way into the lobby, they wounded him as he kept firing, forcing them back outside into the mosque’s car park. There, he was fatally shot.
The shooters went back inside and searched through rooms that were emptied during the lockdown, Wahl said. The gunmen then went back out to the car park, where Kaziha and Awad confronted them. Kaziha was able to call 911 before the gunmen fatally shot both men outside.
A warm and welcoming presence
Amid an outpouring of condolences from Muslim leaders and politicians around the country, people in the tight-knit community say they are struggling to imagine the Islamic Centre without the three men. They were widely regarded as central figures who made the mosque feel like home.
Abdullah greeted all visitors to the mosque with a smile and the traditional Muslim greeting in Arabic of “as-salamu alaikum” or “peace be upon you” according to Mahmood Ahmadi, a long-time attendee. Another friend, Shaykh Uthman Ibn Farooq, said Abdullah was there nearly every single day and was dedicated to his wife and eight kids.
His daughter Hawaa Abdullah, surrounded by family members at a Tuesday news conference, said her father was loving and supportive, a “best friend” and a role model. He took his job protecting the community so seriously that he sometimes wouldn’t eat during his shifts, she said.
Abdullah was raised Christian. In a YouTube video, he described his journey discovering the Islamic faith after graduating high school. Farooq said he met Abdullah shortly after he became a Muslim in the 1990s. Most recently, they had gone on a pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia together.
Khalid Alexander converted to Islam around the same time as Abdullah, roughly 30 years ago. The two men lived together in a different San Diego mosque at the time, where they helped each other imagine how to build meaningful, stable lives. Over the years, Alexander said that he has watched Abdullah take pride in his ability to care for his community as a security guard.
“That was his dream job,” Alexander said.
Alexander said that he and Abdullah sometimes discussed concerns about rising “anti-Muslim, anti-Black, anti-immigrant” sentiments on television. Often, those sentiments came directly to the San Diego mosque through hate mail, which prompted the hiring of security guards like Abdullah and the installation of cameras, Hassane said.
Alexander said Abdullah “was keenly aware of the dangers of his job – and that’s exactly why he chose to do it.”
Father figures in the centre
Kaziha, known as Abu Ezz, had been an integral part of the mosque since it was built in the 1980s, and had served the community “non-stop” since then, Hassane said.
Hassane and others knew Kaziha as the first person to call when something went wrong. “He was the handyman. He was the cook. He was the caretaker. He was the storekeeper. He was everything,” he said.
Yasser Kaziha, Mansour Kaziha’s son, described his father as not only a pillar of the community, but “a pillar of our household”.
Alexander has known Mansour Kaziha since before Alexander converted to Islam. He still remembers the first time in the mid-1990s when he was welcomed into Kaziha’s home. Decades later, Alexander said it was hard to imagine the centre without him.
“He was kind of like the father of that space,” Alexander said.
Nadir Awad lived across the street from the Islamic Centre and attended prayers “every single day,” Hassane said.
When he heard gunfire, Awad ran towards the building, where his wife is a teacher at the school. “He left his home, trying to go and do something to help,” Hassane said during the vigil.
