Three people were killed and two teenage gunmen died by suicide after opening fire inside the Islamic Center of San Diego, described on its website as one of the largest mosques in San Diego County, California.
Among the victims, a security guard managed to shield children inside the mosque before perishing. The two gunmen, both teenagers, turned the weapons on themselves following the attack. Two others were wounded.
Cantor Barry Butensky, Spiritual Leader of Temple Beth Shalom in Cape Coral, issued a press release on Thgursday condemning the attack.
"As Jews, we know all too well the vulnerability that comes with gathering behind the doors of a synagogue, church, mosque, or temple," Butensky wrote. "We stand in full solidarity with our Muslim neighbors – in grief, in prayer, and in moral clarity."
The attack is now being investigated by authorities as a possible hate crime.
"What scares us most is that it's ... normalized. How do you justify the normalization of anti-Semitism and hate — and not only toward Jews, but our brothers and sisters, as we saw in San Diego? You can't justify it, you can't equivocate, because terror is terror and it's becoming the new normal here in the United States," Butensky said.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation's largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, hosted a national webinar on mosque security and community safety in response to the attack. Houses of worship and nonprofit organizations can request access to the full webinar through their website.
"We pray that Allah protects our communities, strengthens our unity, and grants safety to all those targeted by hate and violence," the organization said.
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