A 17-year-old girl has been charged with murder for helping facilitate a livestreamed shooting at a San Diego mosque that killed three people in May, prosecutors said.
The suspect also distributed the attackers’ anti-Muslim, white supremacist writings, said a prosecutor in North Carolina, where the girl lives.
The young woman from the Southern state, whose name was not disclosed, was arrested last week and indicted by a grand jury Monday, shortly before the start of the school year.
"The thought of her going back to school or with the weekend approaching, holy days approaching, we didn't know what she was capable of," said Forsyth County District Attorney Jim O’Neill, referring to the Jewish holiday of Rosh Hashanah, set to start on Sept. 11.
The attackers had also reportedly planned to target a synagogue.
O’Neill said North Carolina law holds that "a person who aids and abets another to commit a crime is guilty of that crime ... just as if he or she had personally done all of the acts necessary to constitute the crime."
Authorities identified the two shooters as Cain Clark, 17, and Caleb Vazquez, 18. They attacked the Islamic Center of San Diego on May 18 before a security guard exchanged gunfire with them and initiated a lockdown, protecting about 140 children inside.
Police said the gunmen killed the guard, Amin Abdullah, along with Mansour Kaziha and Nader Awad, before killing themselves in a nearby vehicle.
O’Neill said the shooting was livestreamed through GoPro cameras worn by the gunmen.
"Their plan that day was to commit mass murders not only at the mosque but to follow up at a local Jewish temple and finally at a predominantly African American high school there in town," he said.
