A 17-year-old girl from North Carolina has been charged with three counts of murder and one count of conspiracy in connection with a May shooting at the Islamic Center of San Diego. Forsyth County District Attorney Jim O’Neill announced Monday that a grand jury indicted the teenager for aiding and abetting the two gunmen who killed three people before taking their own lives.
The charges follow a May 18 attack at the San Diego mosque conducted by 17-year-old Cain Clark and 18-year-old Caleb Vazquez. Authorities reported the gunmen used weapons, including 30 guns and a crossbow taken from Clark’s parents, to kill security guard Amin Abdullah and two other men, Mansour Kaziha and Nader Awad. According to San Diego Police Chief Scott Wahl, Abdullah prevented the gunmen from entering the main areas of the mosque, where 140 children were located.
Prosecutors alleged the North Carolina teenager recorded the livestream of the attack using GoPro helmets worn by the gunmen and disseminated their white supremacist writings. District Attorney O’Neill stated that under North Carolina law, a person who aids and abets a crime faces the same punishment as the primary perpetrator. The girl was arrested last week in Winston-Salem just before she was scheduled to begin the school year.
For the defendant, a conviction on aiding-and-abetting murder charges in North Carolina carries the same statutory penalties as a primary murder conviction. The scale of the alleged plot, according to District Attorney O’Neill, extended beyond the mosque to include planned attacks on a Jewish temple and a predominantly African American high school. The Islamic Center community, where 140 children were present during the initial attack, remains central to the ongoing investigation as authorities coordinate between North Carolina and California.
The legal action sets a precedent for how digital participation, such as livestreaming or distributing manifestos for others, is prosecuted under state aiding-and-abetting laws. While the primary suspects are deceased, this case moves the focus to the alleged support network behind the violence. The next steps in the legal process include upcoming court dates for the 17-year-old in North Carolina; however, specific trial dates or extradition details were not reported.