North Carolina teen charged with murder over San Diego mosque shooting livestream

A 17-year-old girl from North Carolina has been indicted on three counts of murder for recording and disseminating a livestream of the May 18 San Diego mosque attack that killed three people.

North Carolina teenager indicted on murder charges over San Diego mosque shooting livestream

A 17-year-old girl from North Carolina has been charged with murder by aiding and abetting in connection with a shooting that killed three people at a San Diego mosque, Google News MT reports.

Forsyth County District Attorney Jim O'Neill announced at a news conference in Winston-Salem on Monday that the girl — whose name was not disclosed — was arrested last week. A grand jury indicted her on three counts of murder and one count of conspiracy on Monday, just as she was due to begin the new school year.

"The individual here, locally, was the person who was recording the livestream," O'Neill said. "She disseminated that information and she published their manifesto."

Under North Carolina law, aiding-and-abetting charges carry the same penalties as if the accused had carried out the attack personally, O'Neill noted.

Cain Clark, 17, and Caleb Vazquez, 18, stormed the Islamic Center of San Diego on 18 May. A security guard, who exchanged gunfire with the pair and initiated a lockdown, drove them back outside — protecting 140 children who were a short distance away. The guard, Amin Abdullah, was killed, along with two other men. Clark and Vazquez subsequently took their own lives in a nearby vehicle.

The two attackers left behind writings expressing hostility toward a wide range of groups. They cited the gunman who killed 51 people at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand in 2019 as one of the models for their attack.

Prosecutors allege the North Carolina teenager recorded the shooting as a livestream and distributed the attackers' white-supremacist writings online, making her a key facilitator of the violence despite not being physically present at the scene.

Source: Google News MT