’I saw bad stuff’, says 9-year-old who huddled in closet during California mosque attack
SAN DIEGO: Nine-year-old Odai Shanah, whose mother emigrated from war-torn Gaza and settled in Southern California two decades ago, was among dozens of children forced to huddle in classrooms on Monday when deadly gunfire erupted at the mosque where they attend school.
In an interview hours after the late-morning shooting at the Islamic Center of San Diego, Shanah recalled hearing a barrage of gunshots coming from outside the walls of the complex, which also houses an Islamic day school.
Shanah said he and his classmates were quickly ushered into a closet where they crowded together, trembling in fear as 12 to 16 more shots rang out. At some point after the shooting ceased, they heard members of a police SWAT team shouting from outside the classroom, “’OK, open up,’ then they opened the door,” the boy recounted.
As they were escorted out of the building by police officers, “we saw a bunch of bad stuff, people laying down and yeah, bad stuff,” Shanah said, using a phrase that he acknowledged meant that he was referring to the victims’ bodies.
