Two teenage gunmen shot and killed three men outside the Islamic Center of San Diego on Monday before fleeing the scene and dying from apparent self-inflicted gunshot wounds in a nearby car, police said. The attack, which unfolded while a K-12 school operated inside the mosque complex, left five people dead and prompted a massive law enforcement response that San Diego Police Chief Scott Wahl called "the most dynamic and impressive response I have ever seen in policing."
Investigators found anti-Islamic writings inside the suspects' white BMW and hate speech scrawled on one of their firearms. A suicide note recovered from the vehicle included writing about racial pride, a law enforcement source told the New York Post. The FBI is now assisting San Diego police, and the case is being treated as a hate crime.
The dead include a mosque security guard named Amin Abdullah, who Wahl said confronted the gunmen before he was killed. Two other adult men were also found dead outside the center from gunshot wounds. Their identities have not been publicly released.
The timeline that emerged Monday paints a grim picture of missed opportunity and rapid violence. Around 9:42 a.m., San Diego police received a call from a concerned mother reporting a runaway juvenile. After speaking with her, officers began to elevate the threat level the individual posed to the community, Wahl said.
Two hours later, the shooting began.
At 11:43 a.m., SDPD received reports of an active shooter at the Islamic Center of San Diego on the 7000 block of Eckstrom Avenue in Clairemont. Officers arrived four minutes later, at 11:47 a.m., and found the three men dead outside the building. They immediately entered the mosque and the adjacent school to search for the shooter.
By 11:52 a.m., new 911 calls reported that a landscaper had been shot at on the 7100 block of Salerno Street, only a few blocks away. The landscaper survived, bullets missed him. Minutes after that, officers were called to the 3800 block of Hatton Street, where they found a white BMW stopped in the street with what appeared to be the suspects inside, both dead from apparent self-inflicted gunshot wounds.
At 1:06 p.m., the San Diego Police Department posted on X: "The threat at the Islamic center has been neutralized."
Police would not clarify whether the earlier runaway juvenile report was directly connected to the shooting. But the sequence, a mother's warning at 9:42 a.m. followed by gunfire at 11:43 a.m., raises hard questions about what authorities knew and when they knew it.
The Islamic Center of San Diego is the largest mosque in San Diego County, and it houses Bright Horizon Academy, a day school that was in session when the shooting erupted. No children were physically injured, but the terror inside the building was real.
A 9-year-old student named Odai Shanah described what he experienced. Fox News reported that the boy heard a barrage of gunshots and was rushed with classmates into a closet during the attack. He told Reuters he heard more than a dozen shots before SWAT officers eventually called out and opened the classroom door.
"My legs were shaking and my hands and my head were like hurting a lot. I felt like a rock," Shanah said.
Authorities confirmed all students and staff at the school were accounted for and unharmed. Imam Taha Hassane, director of the Islamic Center, told reporters: "The entire school is safe. All the kids, all the staff, and the teachers are safe, out of the Islamic center. There is no threat at this moment."
That a K-12 school full of children sat yards from a triple homicide, and that a security guard's intervention may have prevented the gunmen from entering, is the kind of detail that should focus the mind of every official responsible for protecting houses of worship in this country. Our earlier coverage of the San Diego mosque shooting documented the scale of the police response that followed.
A law enforcement source identified the two suspects as 17-year-old Cain Clark and 18-year-old Caleb Velasquez. Clark was described as a wrestler at Madison High School. The Washington Times reported that police believe both suspects were teenagers and confirmed the case is being treated as a hate crime.
There is a discrepancy in the reported ages: some accounts describe the second suspect as 19 rather than 18. Police have not formally resolved the difference.
What investigators found inside the BMW tells a disturbing story on its own. Anti-Islamic writings. Hate speech written directly on a firearm. A suicide note with language about racial pride. These are not ambiguous indicators. Whatever ideological poison drove these two teenagers to murder three men outside a mosque in broad daylight, they left a paper trail that makes the motive plain.
How two teenagers obtained firearms and planned what appears to be a coordinated attack on a house of worship remains an open question. So does the exact connection, if any, between the mother's 9:42 a.m. call about a runaway juvenile and the massacre that followed two hours later. The investigation, with FBI assistance, is ongoing.
Chief Wahl praised the police response and singled out the fallen security guard, Abdullah, for his role in confronting the attackers.
"All of our kids are safe. Our hearts go out to the families who, in this moment, are being notified of what has happened to their loved ones," Wahl said.
He added that Abdullah "played a pivotal role in assisting, this could have been worse." That an armed security guard at a mosque engaged two shooters and may have prevented a far larger massacre is a fact worth dwelling on. It is also a reminder that the first line of defense for vulnerable communities is often a single person willing to stand in the gap, not a government program.
San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria issued a statement Monday night. "Today, our city was shaken by a violent act at the Islamic Center of San Diego and my heart is with every person touched by this tragedy," Gloria said. "No one in our city should ever have to fear for their safety in a house of faith and a place of learning."
Gloria also thanked first responders. "I am grateful to the San Diego Police Department, our Fire-rescue personnel, and every first responder who moved toward danger to bring this threat to an end," he said.
Governor Gavin Newsom's office posted on X: "We are grateful to the first responders on the scene working to protect the community and urge everyone to follow guidance from local authorities." President Donald Trump called it a "terrible situation," Newsmax reported.
Ahmed Shabaik, chairman of the Islamic Center in San Diego, offered a more restrained summary: "Unfortunately, there are some casualties."
Hate crimes against houses of worship, churches, synagogues, mosques, represent a particular kind of civic failure. They target people at their most vulnerable, gathered in faith, often with their children. The presence of a school on the mosque campus makes this attack especially chilling.
The facts here point clearly toward a hate-motivated attack by two radicalized teenagers. The writings, the targeted location, the suicide note, all of it suggests deliberate planning driven by ideological hatred. The question now is what authorities knew before 11:43 a.m. Monday, and whether the gap between the mother's call and the shooting represents a failure that could have been prevented. Incidents like the Atlanta-area shooting spree that left a DHS auditor and two others dead show how quickly violence can escalate when warning signs go unheeded.
Police said they "began to elevate the level of threat" after speaking with the concerned mother that morning. What that elevation looked like in practice, and whether it included any attempt to locate the juvenile near potential targets, has not been disclosed. The fatal attack on a DHS employee in a separate case underscored how public-safety systems can fail to act on known risks before tragedy strikes.
Five people are dead. Three were murdered outside a mosque. Two killed themselves after carrying out what authorities are treating as a hate crime. A security guard who stood between the gunmen and a building full of children paid with his life.
California has some of the strictest gun laws in the nation, and its leaders rarely miss a chance to say so. Those laws did not stop two teenagers from arming themselves, driving to a mosque, and executing three people in a parking lot. The state's ongoing struggles with public safety, including the population exodus from Los Angeles driven partly by rising crime, suggest that legislative ambition and actual protection remain very different things.
Amin Abdullah, a security guard, did what the system could not. He stepped forward. That should be honored, and it should haunt every official who promises safety but cannot deliver it.
