A nine-year-old boy who was among dozens of children sheltering inside classrooms when gunfire erupted at the Islamic Center of San Diego described the terror he felt as shots rang out and the hours that followed.
Speaking hours after the late-morning shooting at the religious complex, which also contains the Bright Horizon Academy day school, the student said he and other children were rushed into a closet by staff when the first barrage of gunfire came from outside the center's walls. He said the group huddled together as an additional 12 to 16 shots were fired beyond the building.
"OK, open up," members of a police SWAT team shouted from outside the classroom after the gunfire subsided, the boy recalled. "Then they opened the door," he said.
As officers escorted the students out of the building, the child said the scene they encountered was traumatic. "We saw a bunch of bad stuff, people laying down and yeah, bad stuff," he said, using that phrase to indicate he was referring to the victims' bodies.
The boy described his physical reaction to the event. "My legs were shaking and my hands and my head were like hurting a lot. I felt like a rock," he said. He also recounted how officers organized and moved students through the building during the evacuation: "They told us to put our hands up and form a big line," he said, and he noted seeing a separate line of younger students being readied for evacuation before his group was led outside.
Authorities later confirmed that three men affiliated with the Islamic Center, including a security guard whom police credited with preventing greater loss of life, were shot dead outside the mosque. Police said two teenage suspects fired the shots and later took their own lives several blocks away.
Officials emphasized that the gunmen did not enter the mosque complex itself, and that all students enrolled at the Bright Horizon Academy were accounted for and safe after the incident.
Both of the boy's parents provided permission for him to be interviewed by name and to tell his story in his own words. The child is U.S.-born and is identified in the reporting as a relative of a Reuters employee.
After emerging from their hiding place, the boy said he heard police teams moving methodically through nearby classrooms. He described an adjacent classroom door being forced open by officers, an action he said occurred as SWAT units advanced from room to room through the structure.
What happened at the Islamic Center of San Diego unfolded quickly and left a tight-knit community reeling. While police established that the immediate threat ended when the two teenage suspects were found dead blocks away, the shooting claimed the lives of three men connected to the center and prompted a thorough law enforcement response on site.
The child's account offers a window into the immediate impact on students who were inside the school at the time of the attack. Authorities have said the security guard who was killed is credited with actions that limited the potential for a larger casualty count among worshippers and students.
Beyond the human toll, the incident raised urgent questions among families and leaders at the center about safety and emergency response, as officers moved through the building to evacuate and secure classrooms. Officials confirmed all children were accounted for following the operation.
At the time of the reporting, law enforcement had characterized the shooting and the subsequent deaths of the two teen suspects as central facts of the case, and local leaders and families began to process the immediate aftermath of the violence.