- More than 2,000 mourners pay tribute to the men killed defending the mosque.
- The FBI is investigating an attack suspected of being a hate crime.
- Mourners call for an end to anti-Muslim hatred.
SAN DIEGO: More than 2,000 people gathered in a San Diego park Thursday to mourn a security guard and two other men murdered while trying to stop this week’s attack on the city’s largest mosque.
Men and women, including uniformed police officers, lined up for the funeral prayer, or Janazah, to remember the three men described as heroes by mourners for delaying and distracting the attackers, preventing further bloodshed at a time when children were at school at the mosque.
The bodies of the men, Amin Abdullah, 51, Mansour Kaziha, 78, and Nadir Awad, 57, lay under fabrics and carpets, under a white awning.
“[Allahu Akbar] God is greatest,” mourners chanted in Arabic, raising their hands during a service in a park wedged between the city’s river and a soccer stadium.
The three men were to be buried side by side later today in a nearby cemetery.
“Today is a message for everyone. Our community has been hurt but our community remains strong and steadfast,” said the center’s imam, Taha Hassane, adding that people came from the eastern United States and all over California to attend the service.
The FBI is investigating the attack as a suspected hate crime, and the killings have put Muslims on edge across the United States at a time of growing Islamophobia.
Mourner Ruba Abu Jamah, who knew the three men, called for an end to the hatred of Muslims that she said inspired the attackers. She questioned why the mother of one of the teenage suspects, who alerted police that her son was suicidal, would allow him access to guns.
“For God’s sake, why are we going backwards? Hate is making us go backwards,” Abu Jamah said, after hearses took the men’s bodies away for burial. “Moms, don’t have a whole gun show if you know your 16 year old is depressed.”
Abdullah was shot during a shootout with the teenage attackers during which he used his radio to call for a lockdown, police said.
Kaziha, the center’s handyman and cook, as well as Awad, whose wife is a teacher at the center and who lived opposite the mosque, were shot dead by the attackers after hearing gunshots and ran towards the center.
Abdullah’s actions reportedly delayed the attackers’ entry into the center, where 140 students were hiding in closets and other spaces, police said.
The attackers fled the mosque in their vehicle and were later found dead in the car from self-inflicted gunshots, police said.
Khaled Abdullah, 24, the security guard’s son, said his family had drawn strength from his father’s death.
“The fact that he was on the front lines, trying to defend children and innocent people, that makes me feel good,” Khaled said. Reuters Wednesday. “Calling him a hero is the least we can do.”
