In a few bloody minutes, a man rampaged through a St. Cloud shopping mall Saturday evening, stabbing nine people before being fatally shot by an off-duty police officer. The violence is being investigated as terrorism, federal authorities said.
None of the nine victims, seven men and two women who ranged in age from 15 to 53, was killed in the attack.
In a media briefing after midnight Sunday, St. Cloud Police Chief William Anderson said an off-duty officer from another jurisdiction confronted and shot the suspect Saturday night inside Crossroads Center mall. He said the man — dressed in a private security uniform — reportedly asked at least one victim whether they were Muslim before assaulting them, and referred to Allah during the attacks.
So is this guy?
While law enforcement has not disclosed the suspect’s name, his father identified him as Dahir A. Adan, 22. Interviewed Sunday through a translator at his apartment in St. Cloud, Ahmed Adan said his son was born in Kenya but grew up in the United States. Other family members said Dahir Adan was beginning his third year as a student at St. Cloud State University.
Police told Ahmed Adan about 9 p.m. Saturday that his son had died at the mall, he said. He had “no suspicion” of his son being involved in any terrorist activity, he added. Police raided the apartment on St. Germain Street on Sunday morning and seized photos and other materials, Ahmed Adan said.
Police executed search warrants for two apartments, including the one where Adan lived with his father, Anderson said. They also impounded the assailant’s car from the mall parking lot.
Inside the building where the Adans lived, a neighbor said the younger Adan sometimes wore a security guard uniform. A cousin down the hall in the same building described Dahir Adan as a good person who minded his own business.
He minded his own business until he didn't. And note well this assessment, from the same story:
Barakad Omar, a classmate of Dahir Adan at Apollo High School, said he was “a good kid” and an A student.
He was more into sports than religion, said Jama Alimad, a community leader and close friend of the family, who described him as “the most assimilated kid in the neighborhood.” He worked part-time as a security guard at Electrolux Home Products in St. Cloud.
Makes you wonder what the unassimilated kids think.
4 comments:
I actually interviewed with his former employer back in 2012--they make freezers if I remember right. Yikes. One of the questions was about how the Somali employees were getting along.
I also had an interaction recently with a couple of young boys who looked like they were Somali in descent--when I asked one boy, who had just noted he was born in Africa, whether it was Somalia, I was accused of being a racist. So somebody is training them to game the system.
News articles said the kid was about 20 years old and he dropped out of college and left his job in June (not clear if that means quit or was fired). If he were a White kid, I'd suspect mental illness because that's about the time when the voices in the head urging killing lots of people become intolerable without medication, but medication becomes intolerable because it's stultifying. I wonder if Somali immigrants suffer from it, too?
Wonder if anyone's developed that hypothesis, Joe. It seems to be a mirror of what Miriam Grossman found among promiscuous young ladies at UCLA--that there were certain triggers in early adulthood that caused huge problems. On Grossman's side, it was depression and...I'd guess...occasional suicides, and on your side....depression...and...occasional attempts at homicide.
In your copious free time, of course. Interesting thoughts.
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