One Dead in Shooting Near Columbus Mosque, Police Say It Was Not an Attack on the Mosque

One person was killed on Monday, October 19, 2026, in a shooting near a mosque on the Northeast Side of Columbus, Ohio, and police moved quickly to say the mosque itself was not the target.

Columbus police received a report of a shooting at about 2:11 p.m. in the 2200 block of Albert Avenue, east of Westerville Road, according to a police dispatcher cited by The Columbus Dispatch. The caller reported that a group of boys were shooting outside the Alrahma Mosque, which is at 2205 Albert Avenue. Police later said the shooting happened a few hundred feet from the mosque.

One person was pronounced dead at the scene by Columbus Division of Fire medics, Columbus Fire Lt. Nick Davis told the Dispatch. The Dispatch said its photographer at the scene reported that the shooting happened during a funeral at the mosque. Police had not released the name of the person who died by Monday afternoon, and the Dispatch said no information about suspects was immediately available.

Police say the mosque was not attacked

In an updated report on Monday afternoon, the Associated Press quoted Columbus police Sgt. James Fuqua saying the shooting was not an attack on the mosque and had nothing to do with it. Fuqua said one person was killed near the mosque, where an event was happening. AP described the area as a cluster of two story apartment buildings in addition to the mosque, and other reports of the AP update said the shooting happened at a nearby apartment complex.

That distinction matters for how the case is understood. The first word from federal authorities pointed at the mosque itself. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said in a post on X that its agents were responding to a report of a shooting at the mosque, which is northeast of downtown Columbus. By later in the afternoon, city police were correcting that picture in public: a deadly shooting near the building, not an attack on it.

What is not known yet

Police have not said who fired, who died, or why the shooting started. The Dispatch report, based on the dispatcher, described a caller saying a group of boys were shooting outside the mosque. Police have not confirmed that account in the reports published so far, and they have not announced an arrest.

AP said police, neighborhood officials and the mosque did not immediately respond to phone messages seeking more information. That silence is normal in the first hours of a homicide inquiry, but it leaves the central questions open: whether the people involved knew each other, whether anyone else was hurt, and whether the funeral at the mosque had any link to the people outside.

What is confirmed is narrow and should be stated plainly. A shooting was reported at 2:11 p.m. on Albert Avenue. One person died at the scene. Federal agents from the ATF responded after the agency posted about the report on X. And Columbus police, through Sgt. Fuqua, have said clearly that this was not an attack on the mosque.

Investigators will now have to fill in the rest, and the next confirmed facts will come from the Columbus Division of Police. Until then, claims about a motive, a target or a suspect have no source behind them in the reporting so far.