http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/19/us/police-shoot-attacker-in-minnesota-mall-after-8-are-stabbed.html 2016-09-18 17:42:35 Police Shoot Attacker in Minnesota Mall After 8 Are Stabbed The motivation for the attack remained unclear, but law enforcement officials said that a knife-wielding man mentioned Allah and asked at least one victim if he was Muslim. === A man wearing a security guard uniform stabbed eight people on Saturday night at a Minnesota shopping mall before being fatally shot by an off-duty police officer, the authorities in St. Cloud said. All eight stabbing victims were expected to survive, and at least seven were released from the hospital. The police said that the attacker’s motivations remained unclear, but that he had mentioned Allah and asked at least one victim if he was Muslim. “It has hit home for us,” Chief William Blair Anderson of the St. Cloud Police told reporters at the scene. “But I want everybody in St. Cloud to know that we will be diligent and we will get to the bottom of this.” “It’s an awful day, honestly,” Chief Anderson added. In a phone interview on Sunday morning, Mayor Dave Kleis said the mall, Crossroads Center, was an active crime scene and would remain closed. Mr. Kleis praised the off-duty police officer, who he said had “clearly saved lives and protected the other individuals.” “This is exactly what keeps me up at night, and last night it did,” Mr. Kleis said. “This could happen in any community in this country, and certainly we have seen it happen. Certainly it is something that really scares a community.” The disruption to a carefree night of shopping in central Minnesota came on the same day that at least 29 people in New York City were Chief Anderson did not identify the St. Cloud assailant, and said it was too early to know whether it was a terrorist attack. He said the police had had at least three prior interactions with the man, mostly for minor traffic violations. Chief Anderson said the attack had started around 8 p.m. local time and played out at different sites within Crossroads Center, including multiple businesses and common areas. The Crossroads Center website offered few details on Sunday morning; the only reference to the mayhem was a message saying, “The mall will be closed today.” Mayor Kleis, who went to Crossroads Center after the attack, said that “there were a lot of people in that mall and clearly a lot of witnesses,” and that police interviews had stretched well into Sunday morning. Witnesses and local journalists spoke of a busy, crowded and confusing scene after the attack, as well as a swift police mobilization. “One guy was bleeding from the side of his face,” Sydney Weires, a college student who was inside the mall, Harley Exsted, another mall patron, told The St. Cloud Times, “All of a sudden I heard pop pop pop.” “I thought someone tipped over a shelf,” he said. “All of a sudden these people started running. I just saw everybody running our way.” St. Cloud, a city of about 67,00 residents, is about an hour’s drive northwest of Minneapolis. “Starting tomorrow,” Chief Anderson said after the attack, “things won’t be the same here.”