By Ken Stone
Times of San Diego
EL CAJON, California — El Cajon Mayor Bill Wells, addressing a City Hall vigil for slain dentist Benjamin Harouni, vowed Sunday night to tell his family the truth about the suspected gunman’s motives.
“I will not let anything be swept under the rug, and when I understand what the truth is, I will share that with you,” Wells said. “We may have to be a little patient because this may take a little bit of time.”
Wells said he’s heard concerns that the city or FBI “or whoever’s in charge” may try to sweep the probe “under the rug and treat this as though it were a simple crime.”
On Friday, a day after Mohammed Abdulkareem allegedly shot three, killing 28-year-old Harouni at the Smile Plus Dentistry Office, city police said they had “no indication the attack was racially or politically motivated.”
Police also described Abdulkareem as a “disgruntled” former patient.
But at Sunday night’s vigil just blocks from the shooting scene, speakers including Benjamin’s younger brother Jacob blamed hate for the tragedy.
Jake accused some news outlets of trying to “censor and downplay what has happened, such as Instagram blocking Benjamin Harouni’s hashtag.”
Mayor Wells said: “The person who did this has been captured — he’s in jail. And his computers and social media are being pored over right now and there’s been interviews going on with people.”
Rabbi Mendel Polichenco of Chabad of Carmel Valley, speaking near dozens of lit candles in front of a large portrait of Harouni, called for the public to stand up against hatred of Jews.
He denounced that it was “almost OK” to “do things like this in our society because there is not enough people that stand up and cry and scream … we will not allow this.”
Polichenco noted the recent 30th anniversary of the so-called Brooklyn Bridge shooting — in which Rashid Baz shot up a van of 15 Chabad-Lubavitch Orthodox Jewish students, mortally wounding 16-year-old Ari Halberstam.
Halberstam was “gunned down by an Islamic terrorist just because he looked Jewish,” Polichenco told a crowd of 80. “If you look Jewish, that’s why he was murdered in the United States.”
He later said: “These tragedies can be prevented [by believing] in the one God through unity and strength.”
Brother Jacob, Harouni, 23, who goes by Jake, said love and positivity need to be spread to promote peace and “use this tragic event as a pivotal change in the way we treat each other.”
Rabbi Zalman Carlebach of Chabad of Downtown San Diego, who also spoke Sunday night, is quoted in a new Jewish Telegraphic Agency story that community members have seen social media profiles that match the 29-year-old suspect and “show evidence of his extremism.”
“A Facebook page belonging to someone local with the same name, although spelled differently, and who appeared to begin college in 2015, includes expressions of Palestinian solidarity; the page has not been updated in years and could not be verified as belonging to the suspect,” said the New York-based outlet.
Carlebach told JTA he believed Harouni’s death was likely the result of an antisemitic act.
“It’s hard to say that it wasn’t,” the rabbi said the day of a morning burial in Sorrento Valley attended by about 200 people. “The truth is going to come out.”
Jail records say 6-foot-1, 180-pound Mohammed Sabah Abdulkareem, being held at San Diego Central Jail without bail, will be arraigned at 1:30 p.m. Tuesday at El Cajon Superior Court.
He faces charges of first-degree murder and two counts of attempted first-degree murder.
Before collapsing into the arms of family members, brother Jake said: “There’s no way Ben would leave this world without leaving a legacy. He was that powerful.”
He announced that his family would launch a foundation “to stop hate and promote peace and love.”
It would be called “Humans Against Hate.”
“If everybody would just read the messages of love and peace to one another, there would be no room for hatred to grow,” he said.
Closing the 40-minute vigil, Carlebach told of how a 4- or 5-year-old Ben asked his mother how stars could be so far away and yet be so bright.
“Benjamin’s life was a shining star,” he said. “He lived a short 28 years. Let us not walk away feeling darkness and feeling sad. … (but) contribute to society.
“So I ask you all to look up in the sky, find a shining star and say: ‘I would like to be the next star shining on this planet to make the world a better place.’”
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Ken Stone is contributing editor of Times of San Diego, with which San Diego Jewish World trades stories under auspices of the San Diego Online News Association.