Court Records Show 18-Year-Old San Diego Mosque Gunman Dressed as Mass Killers at School
Updated
Updated · ABC 10 News San Diego KGTV · May 26
Court Records Show 18-Year-Old San Diego Mosque Gunman Dressed as Mass Killers at School
5 articles · Updated · ABC 10 News San Diego KGTV · May 26
Court documents say Caleb Vazquez alarmed classmates at High Tech High by dressing as mass killers and as TV serial killer Dexter before the mosque shooting that killed three people and ended in a murder-suicide.
A January police filing said the then-17-year-old had become increasingly infatuated with mass shootings and World War II, idolized Hitler, researched the dark web and told a friend not to come to school the next day.
Chula Vista police sought a gun violence restraining order after a welfare check, but officers said Vazquez’s father refused to let them speak to him alone or verify firearms were secured.
Vazquez was placed on a 72-hour psychiatric hold, and his parents later said they removed more than two dozen guns, ammunition and knives from the home, but a judge dismissed the father’s restraining order two weeks later.
After his family removed 29 guns, how did the teenage shooter rearm for his deadly attack?
With multiple warnings and a restraining order, how did the system fail to stop the San Diego shooting?
The San Diego Mosque Shooting: How Two Radicalized Teens Killed Three and Exposed Systemic Failures in Preventing Hate Crimes
Overview
On May 18, 2026, two teenagers, Caleb Vazquez and Cain Clark, carried out a deadly shooting at the Islamic Center of San Diego, killing three people. The attackers livestreamed their actions while wearing tactical gear marked with a white supremacist symbol, making their extremist motives clear. Investigators quickly identified hate rhetoric and treated the incident as a hate crime, highlighting the growing threat of radicalized violence against Muslims by far-right networks. The attack also reflected how international conflicts can fuel domestic tensions, and it exposed failures in preventing access to weapons and stopping online radicalization.