ISIS Claims Responsibility For Minnesota Stabbing Attack

All nine victims – seven men, a woman and a 15-year-old girl – were treated at hospitals for wounds that weren’t life-threatening, St. Cloud police Chief Blair Anderson said at a news conference Sunday.

St. Cloud Mayor David Kleis said the suspect, whom officials are not naming at this time, lunged at Jason Falconer, a part-time police officer in Avon, Minnesota, west of St. Cloud. He said authorities have no reason to believe anyone else was involved in the attack.

Rick Thorton, an FBI Agent from Minneapolis, stated that the “FBI is now investigating this as a potential act of terrorism”.

Leaders of the Somali community in central Minnesota are condemning the stabbing of nine people at a mall.

It was not immediately clear whether the attacker, whom the police have not identified, had any direct ties to the Islamic State, or whether he acted on his own.

Anderson later told CNN that: “We still don’t have anything substantive that would suggest anything more than what we know already, which is this was a lone attacker… It has also claimed past attacks that are not believed to have been planned by its central leadership”, according to a news release from the police department. Speaking to the newspaper through an interpreter, Ahmed Adan, whose family is Somali, said his son was born in Africa and had lived in the USA for 15 years. Spokesman Adam Hammer said Adan’s intended major was information systems, which is a computer-related field.

He attacked his victims at several sites in the shopping center, which will remained closed on Sunday as police investigate, the police chief said.

Witnesses and local journalists spoke of a busy, crowded, and confusing scene after the attack, as well as a swift police mobilization. Their attacker was ultimately shot and killed by an off-duty police officer. Falconer then fired shots at the suspect, who fell but got up three times before he died.

“Officer Falconer was there at the right time at the right place”, Mayor Kleis said.

Somali community leaders in St. Cloud, about 60 miles (100 km) northwest of Minneapolis-St. “We do not know the motive of that stabbing incident”, said Mohamoud Mohamed of the St. Cloud Area Somali Salvation Organization.

Minnesota has the nation’s largest Somali community, with census numbers placing the population at about 40,000.

Anderson said most of the encounters were for minor traffic violations.

The Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for the attack.

Jason Falconer is being hailed by authorities, Gov. Mark Dayton and others for stopping a man suspected of carrying out the attack Saturday night in a St. Cloud mall. A second suspicious device was found a few blocks away, authorities say.

A pipe bomb also exploded in a New Jersey beach town on Saturday along the route of a charity race to benefit military veterans but no injuries were reported in what investigators also were treating as a possible act of terrorism. There was no indication that any of the incidents were linked.

St. Cloud Hospital spokeswoman Chris Nelson said Sunday that the other five people were released and that none of the three still at the hospital has injuries that are considered life-threatening.

Photos and video of the mall taken hours after the incident showed groups of shoppers waiting to be released, including some huddled together near a food court entrance.

“One guy was bleeding from the side of his face”, Sydney Weires, a college student who was inside the mall, told The St. Cloud Times.

Harley Exsted, another mall patron, told The St. Cloud Times, “All of a sudden I heard pop pop pop”. “People came running around the corner and I freaked out because I thought it was a terrorist attack or something because I saw a lot of people, so I grabbed my kids”, he said.

Authorities say a man dressed in a private security uniform started stabbing people and reportedly made references to Allah.

“I ran as much as I could and I heard someone yell ‘Stop!”

Bayne said she ran out to the parking lot and took off in her auto.

Falconer, who lives just outside of St. Cloud, was a multi-medal recipient in 2012 when St. Cloud hosted the CAN-AM Games for Law Enforcement and Firefighters, and he continues to compete in various shooting events.