Police say three men are dead after a man shouting anti-white sentiments gunned them down in Fresno, California, on Tuesday.
Muhammad was wanted in connection to the killing of an unarmed security guard at a Motel 6 last week, police said.
As he was taken into custody, Muhammad yelled out, "Allahu Akbar" or "God is great" in Arabic, Dyer said.
However, Dyer said Muhammad's Facebook contains numerous anti-government posts and claims of hating white people. Officials said the shots missed.
We denounce and reject in the strongest words possible this kind of violence and attack, Ghazvini said, and we request law enforcement agencies investigate the reasons and motivations about the person himself.
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The newspaper reported that the gunman appeared to be randomly targeting people, shooting a man in a front yard, and then another person at a bus stop, and then a man in the Catholic Charities parking lot. Federal prosecutors said at the time that he was also in possession of a 9mm semi-automatic handgun and two rifles after being convicted of a felony. The FBI and ATF San Francisco Field Division are assisting Fresno police with the investigation.
The authorities were spending time scrubbing Muhammad's Facebook page, where he wrote often about his dislike of white people, calling them the "white devil", and recently posted a photo of white people gathering near a lynching. Dyer indicated it was "still too early" to know if the shootings were an act of terrorism.
A Fresno city spokesman says county offices are on lockdown, and people have been urged to shelter in place. "I shot them", the police chief said. Dyer said a responding officer saw the suspect at Fulton and Divisadero Street where he was taken into custody. The driver of the truck, who was not struck, drove the victim to the Fresno Police Department's headquarters in downtown Fresno and alerted officers.
The shooting happened outside a Catholic Charities building, but spokeswoman Teresa Dominguez said the charity doesn't believe the suspect was tied to the nonprofit organization.
'We are very sorry for this to happen. Attorney General Xavier Becerra issued a statement about the shooting, saying, "My thoughts and prayers go out to the families affected by the shooting in Fresno".
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