Bouquets at San Diego mosque mark shattered sense of safety

In the days after three people were killed at the Islamic Center of San Diego on May 18, 2026, the community is gathering at the mosque’s gate—under yellow crime scene tape and beneath a growing mound of flowers—while questions swirl around anti-Muslim hostili

San Diego’s Islamic Center is usually a place where life moves forward—kids head to school, congregants file in to pray, and neighbors drop by for cultural events. Now it’s busy for another reason entirely.

Outside the mosque gates. a growing pile of bouquets—lilies. daisies. and sunflowers—has been left at the base of a large palm tree. Notes are tucked among the flowers. The entrance remains cordoned off with yellow crime scene tape. Parents approach slowly. with tears in their eyes. to pick up their children’s belongings and to carry their grief out into the open.

The center’s minaret can be seen for miles. From across the globe. worshippers come there for prayer and for community—many of them immigrants to America from Gaza and other places besieged by violence. The expansive white building with its blue tiled roof has been the backdrop for daily connections to God. countless Eid celebrations. and events that welcomed interfaith communities.

For many congregants, the mosque has represented the best America has to offer: peace, a sense of belonging, and love. That sense of safety was shattered on Monday. May 18. 2026. when three people— a security guard. a longtime mosque employee. and the husband of a teacher—were slain as they tried to prevent two teenage shooters from killing others. The attack unfolded as dozens of children were hiding in classrooms.

Even now. some congregants are still wrestling with denial. unable to reconcile how quickly a place they felt so safe could become a scene of violence and tragedy. Others carry an anger that has been building for years. shaped by anti-Muslim hate that has been embraced—and perpetuated—by some of the highest-ranking elected officials in the country.

Imam Taha Hassane said he and his community never expected the kind of violence that has struck their doorstep. “We are aware of what’s happening around the world. around the nation. the rise of anti-Muslim sentiment. the rise of anti-every type of minority sentiment. but we never expected such things to happen. ” he told The Times.

Tamer Bar, 39, prays at the mosque at least two times a day. His family back in Gaza faces violence on a daily basis. and he said the mosque offers respite from the pain of watching the destruction of his homeland. “When we pray at the mosque we leave everything behind and we go to face God,” he said. “It’s a place of peace.”.

Omar Abusham, 23, has been going to the Islamic Center of San Diego since he was 3. His memories of childhood circle back to the mosque—Arabic school on Saturdays. youth groups. a place where you could spend time with friends. “Our mosque is not just only a place for prayer. We have activities, we have youth groups, we have a school. It was much more than just a mosque or a religious site. If you wanted to spend some time with your friends, you would come to the mosque. So to see this happen it’s devastating,” he said.

Abusham now works across the street from the mosque as the programs and outreach coordinator at the Council on American-Islamic Relations. He said he goes to the mosque twice a day to pray. but his favorite times were the community events that brought people together regardless of faith—gatherings for Palestine and events for Sudan. Going back, he said, will be painful, but he believes the community will endure. “I think this is a story we’ll tell our kids. and it’s something that we can’t ignore. ” he said.

On Monday, the community’s grief collided with political tension during a news conference with San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria. A woman heckled the mayor as he was about to speak. accusing city leadership of ignoring concerns raised by Muslim and Palestinian communities. “Our Muslim brothers and sisters have been talking to you, for how long?” she shouted. “You have to f— listen to them.”.

Raqib Hameed Naik. executive director of the Washington-based Center for the Study of Organized Hate. said anti-Muslim sentiment has intensified in roughly the last year and been pushed by more than 80 Republican elected officials online. Naik said those officials have used their platforms to promote dangerous narratives and helped bolster coordinated campaigns by right-wing social media influencers that spread conspiracy theories. “There’s this broader climate of hate targeting Muslims,” Naik said. “This shooting in San Diego is a clear manifestation of that.”.

The atmosphere has not been limited to San Diego. An online smear campaign last month engulfed another Southern California mosque. In a post on X. a social media influencer who frequently spreads anti-Muslim conspiracy theories claimed that plans by the Islamic Society of Orange County to expand would create a “parallel” society and “Sharia enclave” where U.S. laws do not apply, in service of the “Islamization” of Orange County.

Mosque leaders said that brazen screed led to a surge of hateful rhetoric and threats of violence against the facility and its congregants. In response, the Garden Grove Police Department increased patrols in the area.

Deana Helmy, chair of the Islamic Shura Council of Southern California, described that month’s incident and the fear that followed as part of a broader pattern. “We are seeing a pattern,” Helmy said, of the incident last month and of the community’s fear after the San Diego shooting.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations received 8,683 civil rights complaints in 2025, the highest number in a single year since the organization began tracking such data in 1996. Of those complaints, 198 were considered hate crimes, according to its most recent report.

The Islamic Center of San Diego and its congregants have been targets of threats and hate before. The center increased its security and began arming its security after the mosque attacks in Christchurch, New Zealand, in 2019.

Abdullah. the armed security guard who was killed. encouraged women to learn self-defense—especially those who wore hijabs. whom Abdullahi said were more vulnerable to violence because they are visibly Muslim. Ismahan Abdullahi. a local Muslim leader and activist who is currently the executive director at the Faith Power Alliance. said Abdullah offered training for volunteers at other nearby mosques that might not have been able to hire guards.

Abdullah, she said, took his job with an intensity that bordered on relentless. He would stand in the hot sun constantly peering around, at times skipping meals. “He would never sit, so as to always be at the ready, she said. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen him sit in all these years,” she said.

Hassane said vandals have targeted the mosque too—throwing eggs and hurling curses and epithets as they drove past the center. He said it happens more during election time, “when some politicians want to score cheap political points.”

Still, the mosque has not lost the faith of those who rely on it. Hassane said the attacks have not deterred worshippers. “This mosque for my community members is a second home,” he said, pausing to hold back tears. “This is a place where my community members. when they want to worship. when they want to meditate. when they want to celebrate. when they want to learn. when they want to enjoy their time. they come here. ” he said.

Misbah Rashad. 30. an epidemiologist who attends the mosque daily. said it has been jarring to see a place central to her life become a breaking-news scene. “Seeing footage. I think. ‘I walk down this sidewalk. I know that front door.’ These are all images familiar to me. That’s what makes it real,” Rashad said. “I am just hoping there are ways, inshallah, to prevent something like this from ever happening again.”.

For Suzan Hamideh. who has been visiting the mosque for three decades. the reality of what unfolded is still settling in. Years ago. her children attended Saturday school at the mosque and bought snacks from Mansour Kaziha. who ran the market inside the center. Hamideh said Kaziha was also killed in the shooting.

Now she is angry—not only about the loss of life, but about what she said the community knows children will carry with them for years. She also pointed to what she called rampant misunderstanding of the Muslim religion that she suspects led to the violence.

“It’s just so sad that every time an Islamic organization or Islamic house of worship or Islamic school is targeted. we get the news that the shooters are mentally ill. ” she said. adding that when other groups are targeted authorities call it terrorism. “I am so sorry, but we are so done with these excuses,” she said.

The flowers keep coming to the base of the palm tree outside the mosque gates. even as the center remains silent behind yellow tape. For a community that once came through these doors for school. prayer. and shared holidays. the question now is how a place built for peace was made vulnerable—and whether the warnings that preceded it were ever taken seriously enough.

Islamic Center of San Diego mosque shooting May 18 2026 anti-Muslim hate San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria CAIR complaints Council on American-Islamic Relations vigil hijab Raqib Hameed Naik Deana Helmy Imam Taha Hassane