Dahir Adan: What we know

September 22, 2016 at 3:30PM
Dahir Adan was fatally shot by an off-duty police officer after he stabbed a number of people at the Crossroads Center mall in St. Cloud.
Dahir Adan, Suspect in the stabbings at the Crossroads Center, St Cloud, MN (Facebook/The Minnesota Star Tribune)

What we know

Family and friends have identified 20-year-old Dahir Adan as the man who stabbed and injured nine people at Crossroads Center mall in St. Cloud before he was shot dead Saturday. Here's what we know about him:

• Adan, who was Somali, was born in Kenya but grew up in the United States, according to family.

• Adan enrolled at St. Cloud State in 2014. He was last enrolled in spring 2016 as a sophomore, where he planned to major in information systems.

• Jama Alimad, a community leader and close friend of the family, said he was more into sports than religion, describing him as "the most assimilated kid in the neighborhood." "He was an A student. He was a tutor. He was employed," he said.

• Somali community soccer coach Ahmed Ali said Dahir Adan called him two nights before the mall attack to ask advice on how to lose weight. Ali said that although Adan wasn't social, he didn't believe he suffered from mental illness. The family denies that he was mentally ill.

• Until June, Adan had worked on a contract basis as a weekend security guard at Electrolux Home Products in St. Cloud. Neighbors said Adan, who was quiet and polite, was sometimes seen wearing a security guard uniform.

• Securitas, a security firm where Adan worked, confirmed that he was a part-time employee who resigned in 2016. He was not employed by Securitas at the time of the attacks, and the firm does not provide security to the mall.

• Adan was wearing a security uniform when he entered the mall's southeast entrance at 8:15 p.m. Saturday with a knife.

• He reportedly asked at least one victim whether they were Muslim before assaulting them, and referred to Allah ­during the attacks.

• He stabbed the victims, who ranged in age from 15 to 53, in the mall's corridors before he was shot and killed in the mall's north end inside Macy's by off-duty police officer Jason Falconer.

• Roughly 12 hours after the stabbings, a news agency said to speak for ISIL went to Twitter to claim credit for the mall violence. "The executor of the stabbing attacks in Minnesota yesterday was a soldier of the Islamic State and carried out the operation in response to the citizens of countries belonging to the crusader coalition," the posting by the AMAQ news agency read.

• The FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force is looking at Adan's social media and other contacts that could shed light on his motivation for the attack.

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