The Islamic Center of San Diego is one of the largest mosques in San Diego and attracts worshippers from across the region. Inside are classrooms, an office, praying halls, a multipurpose room, a library, a kitchen, and a grocery store where kids frequently buy snacks after school.<\/p>\n
The man who ran the grocery store was one of three killed by gunmen on Monday. A security guard who\u2019d worked at the location for decades, and a husband of one of the school\u2019s teachers were also killed, according to mosque members. Authorities have not yet identified them by name.<\/p>\n
Suzan Hamideh was trying to come to terms with what unfolded at the mosque she\u2019d been visiting for decades. Right now, she said, she\u2019s angry \u2014 at the loss of life, by the fact that the children will live with this trauma for the rest of their lives, and by what she called the rampant misunderstanding of the Muslim religion that she suspects led to the violence.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy should this be happening to begin with? And then in schools and places of worship. There is so much hatred,\u201d she said. \u201cIt needs to change, and it starts with educating people about Islam. It\u2019s a religion of love and peace.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hamideh said she\u2019d heard from those inside that, as soon as the shooters entered the house of worship, the security guard radioed to the rest of the staff that there was an active shooter.<\/p>\n
This gave teachers a chance to lock their classrooms, which house students in kindergarten through third grade, she said.<\/p>\n
Police Chief Scott Wahl said the security guard was \u201cable to minimize the situation to the front area of the mosque.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHis actions were heroic,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Hamideh was in the area for work when she heard about the shooting. The sounds of sirens and helicopters filled the area. She immediately called her cousin to see if she should pick up his son from the school.<\/p>\n
The boy tried to put on a brave face for her, she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs soon as he saw his dad, he just ran into his arms in tears,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Islamic Center of San Diego is one of the largest mosques in San Diego and attracts worshippers…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":806501,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5123],"tags":[1582,276,13136,4471,6283,75632,29768,327979,2961,224,5337,62465,1408,3546,7207,3549,11645,66160,101,328102],"class_list":["post-806500","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-ca","tag-california","tag-call","tag-child","tag-council","tag-executive-director","tag-gunman","tag-islamic-center","tag-la","tag-los-angeles","tag-losangeles","tag-mosque","tag-official","tag-people","tag-police","tag-san-diego","tag-school","tag-shooter","tag-shooting","tag-significant-injury"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116598984245836082","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/806500","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=806500"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/806500\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/806501"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=806500"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=806500"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=806500"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}