Shock in San Diego after deadly shooting at the city’s largest mosque
Shock in San Diego after deadly shooting at the city’s largest mosque
5:20
When Ammar Campa-Najjar saw the news about a shooting at the Islamic Center of San Diego on Monday, it hit close to home, he told CNN, because he attended the school at the mosque growing up.
“When I heard that there was where they had gone, where the gunman had gone, I remember where those places are, what those classrooms rooms were,” he told CNN’s Jake Tapper. The director of the Islamic Center said that all kids, teachers and staff were safe.
Later speaking to CNN’s Lynda Kinkade, he said he had known one of the victims since he was six years old.
“He worked at the convenience store in the mosque. And when I would wait for my mom to pick me up from school, he’d be there and he’d give me some treats.”
Campa-Najjar said he first went to the school at the age of six, for first and second grade. “Then I lived in Gaza for a couple years and came back to that school and finished middle school.”
Campa-Najjar, who is running as a Democrat in a nearby California congressional district, said the “entire country should be in mourning.”
“An attack on one of us is an attack on all of us in this country. And this is an American tragedy, not just for one community.”
He called on all Americans to “step up and speak out and say that this kind of hate has no place.”
Police are investigating the shooting as a hate crime, though the specifics of the attackers’ motives are still unclear.