A 17-year-old North Carolina girl who recorded a livestream of a shooting that killed three people at a San Diego mosque and disseminated the attackers’ white-supremacist writings has been charged with murder by aiding and abetting, a district attorney said Monday.
Forsyth County District Attorney Jim O’Neill said at a news conference in Winston-Salem that the girl, identified in court records as Sarah Lindsey Santiago, was arrested last week. A grand jury indicted her on three counts of murder and one count of conspiracy Monday.
Santiago’s attorney did not immediately return a message from The Associated Press seeking comment Monday.
Under North Carolina law, the aiding-and-abetting charges carry the same penalties as if the girl had committed the attack herself, O'Neill said. According to the indictment, Santiago agreed prior to the attack that she would record the livestream, distribute it and release a document written by the attackers. She carried out those tasks, it said, and she purchased a patch bearing a white-supremacist symbol and sent it to one of the gunmen to wear during the attack.
“The individual here, locally, was the person who was recording the livestream," O'Neill said. “She disseminated that information and she published their manifesto.”
Cain Clark, 17, and Caleb Vazquez, 18, stormed the Islamic Center on May 18 before being driven back outside by a security guard who exchanged gunfire with them as he initiated a lockdown, helping to protect 140 children who were just steps away.