Behavior of teen in mosque shooting led police to seize family guns a year before attack
A year before the San Diego mosque shooting, one of the perpetrators, 18-year-old Caleb Vazquez, was flagged to law enforcement for displaying alarming behavior, including idolizing Nazis and mass shooters. This led to a court order in January 2025 to confiscate 26 firearms from his father's home under a California law for dangerous individuals. Vazquez and the other teen, 17-year-old Cain Clark, were radicalized online. Clark's mother reported missing weapons from her home, initiating a search that preceded the shooting at the Islamic Center of San Diego, where three people were killed before the teens died by suicide. Vazquez's family stated he was on the autism spectrum and had struggled with aspects of his identity, attributing his radicalization partly to online exposure to hateful rhetoric.