The security guard who was one of three people killed in the shooting at the Islamic Center of San Diego was a father of eight children who deeply cared about his community and sacrificed his life to protect people inside the mosque, said his friend Sam Hamideh.
He “wasn’t just some security guard,” Hamideh told CNN’s Kyung Lah. “Every single time you crossed him, he always put a smile on your face, he always brought that energy of everything’s good, having that strong faith in God and always being kind.”
A school teaching kindergarten to third grade is situated inside the mosque, said Hamideh, whose middle child was in class during the shooting. Every day, the security guard would run to the car when Hamideh or his wife dropped off their child, he said. The morning of the shooting, the security guard told Hamideh’s wife, “Say hello to Sam,” he said. “I didn’t know it was his goodbye. That was crushing.”
After calling his child’s teacher, the security guard was the second call Hamideh made after learning of the shooting, he said. “I know that he knew he was sacrificing his life for the kids,” Hamideh said of his friend of four years. “Because if he didn’t take that bullet, they would easily walk up the stairs.”
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