First picture of security guard who gave life to stop mosque gunmen shooting up classroom

More than £1.4million has been raised for the security guard shot dead while saving people from a mosque mass shooting.

Amin Abdullah was one of three people killed at the Islamic Center of San Diego on Monday, according to a fundraiser launched by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).

The shooters Cain Clark, 17, and Caleb Velasquez, 18, were found dead in a car nearby, seemingly from self-inflicted gun wounds.

The other two victims were identified as Mansour Kaziha, a community leader who managed the mosque store for nearly 40 years, and Nader Awad, who ‘turned away community members from the bullets and saved lives.’

TV footage showed more than a dozen children holding hands and being walked out of the center’s parking lot as it was surrounded by police vehicles.

‘Teachers, staff, and more than a dozen children were walked safely out of that building by police that afternoon, hand in hand,’ the CAIR fundraiser said.

‘They are alive because Amin did his job.’

San Diego Police Chief Scott Wahl said the guard in the line of fire appeared to have helped stop the shooters from committing a deadlier mass shooting.

‘I think it’s fair to say his actions were heroic, and undoubtedly he saved lives today.’

Imam Taha Hassane said he and his wife had been hiding in their apartment above the mosque while everything unfolded.

Speaking of the security guard, he said his radio signal warning teachers about the shooters saved ‘So many souls’.

Amin Abdullah, a Muslim convert, said in a video just before his death: ‘Do something beneficial for the next person, let this be your legacy.

‘When you pass away, perhaps this video may reach someone and they repent, come back to their creator, and then they become a better person that will benefit you, even when you’re in the grave.’

James Canning, a spokesman for San Diego Unified School District, said school police were cooperating with authorities investigating the mosque attack.

One of the suspects Cain Clark had been attending school online since 2021 and was on track to graduate next month, he said.

While he did not attend school in person, he did participate in 2024 as a member of the wrestling team at Madison High School in San Diego. Canning said Clark had no record of disciplinary issues in high school.

Next-door neighbors Marne and Ted Celaya said they had last seen Clark a few hours before the shooting and that he waved as he got into a car alone and drove away.

They described the Clark family as good neighbors for more than 20 years and remembered when Cain was born, watching him and his older brother grow up.

‘It’s unbelievable,’ Marne Celaya said of the shooting. ‘He’s helped me bring in my groceries.’

Officers used automated license plate readers to track the car and went to a mall. They also alerted a school where at least one of the teens was a student and interviewed the mother, Wahl said.

When reports of the shooting came in, police responded within four minutes of being called. Three men were dead when police arrived.