A 17-year-old North Carolina girl has been charged with murder by aiding and abetting after allegedly recording a livestream and disseminating white-supremacist writings for a mass shooting that left three people dead at a San Diego mosque, according to The Associated Press.
North Carolina Teen Indicted on Murder Charges for Aiding San Diego Mosque Attack
Forsyth County District Attorney Jim O’Neill announced during a news conference in Winston-Salem that the teenager, identified in court records as Sarah Lindsay Santiago, was arrested last week just before she was due to begin the school year. On Monday, a grand jury in Forsyth County indicted Santiago on three counts of murder and one count of conspiracy. Officials stated that she will be tried as an adult due to the terrorism-related charges.
Under North Carolina law, the aiding-and-abetting charges carry the same penalties as if the teenager had carried out the attack herself, O’Neill said. According to the indictment, Santiago agreed prior to the May 18 incident to record the livestream, distribute it, and release a document written by the attackers. Investigators said she purchased a patch bearing a white-supremacist symbol and mailed it to one of the gunmen to wear during the assault.
The individual here, locally, was the person who was recording the livestream,
O’Neill said, adding, She disseminated that information and she published their manifesto.
The May 18 Attack and Investigation Details
The shooting took place on May 18 when two teenage gunmen, identified as 17-year-old Cain Clark and 18-year-old Caleb Vazquez, dressed in camouflage and stormed the Islamic Center in the Clairemont neighborhood of San Diego. A security guard exchanged gunfire with the pair while initiating a lockdown, helping protect roughly 140 to 150 children who were steps away.
The two gunmen killed three men outside the center—identified as Amin Abdullah, Mansour Kaziha, and Nadir Awad—before taking their own lives in a vehicle parked nearby. FBI Special Agent in Charge Reid Davis noted that a mother had called 911 two hours before the shooting to report her son and a weapon missing from their home. Davis also stated that Santiago had multiple opportunities to report the impending crime before it occurred, emphasizing that failing to come forward with credible knowledge of planned violence must have consequences.
Broader Ideological Motives and Prevented Targets
Investigators revealed that the attack was believed to be ideologically motivated, with the perpetrators leaving behind rambling writings filled with vitriol against a wide range of groups. The attackers cited the 2019 mosque shootings in Christchurch, New Zealand, as a model for their violence. Their writings expressed far-right ideological inspirations, including racist replacement theories, and featured hateful rhetoric targeting Jewish people, Muslims, the LGBTQ+ community, Black people, women, and the political left and right, with the stated goal of accelerating societal collapse.
District Attorney O’Neill disclosed that the attackers planned subsequent assaults on two additional targets: a Jewish temple and a predominantly Black high school. O’Neill credited the security guard and other victims at the mosque with saving countless lives and urged parents to monitor their children’s online activity, warning against an underground subculture of hate operating on coded platforms.
