Two teenagers killed three people in an attack on the Islamic Center of San Diego on Monday, and U.S. authorities said the shooters’ path to violence began online. The FBI said Cain Clark and Caleb Vazquez were radicalized where they first met and shared white supremacist views, according to authorities and writings they authored.
FBI Special Agent Mark Remily, the lead FBI agent in San Diego, said the two men “didn’t discriminate on who they hated,” in remarks provided Tuesday, as investigators examined writings and material tied to the attackers. Investigators said those writings, which The Associated Press reported it obtained, included hateful rhetoric directed at multiple groups, including Jewish people, Muslims and Islam, the LGBTQ+ community, Black people, women, and both the political left and right.
Authorities said the writings reflected beliefs that white people were being eliminated, and that at least one of the two attackers wrote about mental health struggles and being rejected by women. Investigators also found at least 30 guns, ammunition and a crossbow at two residences after the attack, as they worked to determine whether Clark and Vazquez had broader plans beyond the mosque, Remily said.
Police said the attackers identified as Clark, 17, and Vazquez, 18, killed themselves, and authorities said there was no specific threat against the Islamic Center of San Diego before Monday’s attack. The center is described by authorities as the largest mosque in San Diego and it also houses a school.
During the attack, police said security guard Amin Abdullah opened fire when the shooters arrived and tried to barge inside. As the attackers made their way into the lobby, they wounded Abdullah, who kept firing and forced them back outside, police said. Investigators said the attackers then returned and searched through rooms emptied during a lockdown, before exiting into the parking lot where they fatally shot Mansour Kaziha and Nadir Awad.
Imam Taha Hassane said Abdullah engaged the suspects in a gunbattle and called for a lockdown on his radio. Hassane said Abdullah “sacrificed his life to stop them from getting inside the classrooms,” and police chief Scott Wahl said the men drew the attackers farther away from the building. Abdullah had worked at the mosque for more than a decade, Hassane said, and community members described him as a longtime part of the center’s day-to-day life.
Investigators said the center and its community had faced hate messages before, even as authorities said the motivation in the attackers’ writings reached beyond any single group. In public remarks, Hassane said “We have never ever expected such things to happen at the Islamic Center of San Diego” and that the mosque was used to receiving hate mail and harassment, but not a “horrible crime” like the one that occurred Monday.
Authorities said Clark and Vazquez met online before discovering they both lived in the San Diego area. Remily said investigators were “still digging into that” in terms of how the radicalization occurred, and police were also trying to determine whether the pair had plans that extended beyond the mosque attack.
Officials also described the broader context for heightened concern over houses of worship. The AP reported authorities said the shooting was part of a string of attacks on places of worship, amid rising threats and hate crimes targeting Muslim and Jewish communities since the beginning of war in the Middle East, forcing increases in security.
At the Islamic Center of San Diego, leaders from multiple faiths embraced Hassane at a vigil Tuesday to honor those killed. Hassane told the crowd that the gathering was meant to celebrate the community’s unity, saying, “We are here to celebrate the patience, the resilience of the Muslim community” and “We are here to honor our heroes, our martyrs.”
Police said the victims included three men who were killed during the attack: Abdullah, Kaziha and Awad. Community members said Kaziha, known as Abu Ezz, “was everything” to the Islamic Center, and Hassane said Awad and other victims were instrumental in sustaining the center’s work and services.