North Carolina grand jury indicts teenager over alleged role in San Diego mosque shooting

A North Carolina grand jury has indicted Sarah Lindsey Santiago, 17, over her alleged role in the shooting that killed three men at a San Diego mosque on May 18.

Prosecutors accuse Santiago of aiding and abetting the attack by agreeing to livestream it, distribute the recording publicly and release a manifesto written by the attackers. The indictment charges her with three counts of murder and one count of conspiracy.

Forsyth County District Attorney Jim O’Neill said North Carolina filed state charges because the teenager can be tried as an adult there. A conviction could bring life in prison without parole. Federal charges, by comparison, could result in a sentence of three or four years.

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underground subculture

The victims were security guard Amin Abdullah, 51, caretaker Mansour Kaziha, 78, and Nadir Awad, 57, the husband of a teacher at the Islamic Center of San Diego. They were credited with preventing further violence while 140 children were at the mosque’s school and were honored as heroes at a memorial service.

The alleged attackers, Caleb Vazquez, 18, and Cain Clark, 17, died by suicide in their vehicle while fleeing. Investigators said they had also planned attacks on a Jewish temple and a predominantly African American high school. O’Neill described the suspects’ online environment as an “underground subculture” that radicalizes people through intense hatred of different cultures and religions.

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It's an echo chamber of intense hate against different cultures and religions. Cain and Vazquez, by what is contained in their manifesto, seem to hate everyone, regardless of skin color, politics, religion, or ethnicity, and this underground subculture of hate, they listen to each other, they talk to each other in encoded platforms