The identities of the two teenagers responsible for the attack on a San Diego mosque have been revealed as Cain Clark and Caleb Vazquez.
Seventeen-year-old Clark and eighteen-year-old Vazquez left their homes equipped with a 9mm handgun, a shotgun, and a mini-14 rifle, all reportedly stolen from Clark’s mother’s residence. They targeted the Islamic Center of San Diego around 11:40 a.m., disrupting the community with their violent actions.
The tragic assault resulted in the deaths of three individuals outside the mosque, which also functions as a school, before the teenagers ended their own lives.
Authorities noted the teens were clad in camouflage attire and identified their vehicle as a 2018 BMW X1 SUV, which was broadcast over police radios soon after the attack.
Among the victims was Amin Abdullah, a security guard and father to eight children.
Police Praise Security Guard’s ‘Heroic’ Actions
Anees Faraj, a close friend and colleague who wasn’t on duty at the time, expressed his shock at the incident and confirmed that Abdullah was the slain guard.
San Diego Police Chief Scott Wahl said that Amin and his actions helped prevent an even deadlier attack and added: ‘His actions were heroic and he undoubtedly saved lives today.’
TV footage from a helicopter showed armed response teams gathered outside a building, with one unidentified person lying in a pool of blood.
The place of worship, the largest in San Diego, is also home to the Al Rashid school, which educates children from kindergarten to the third grade. The imam of the mosque confirmed that no children were injured during the shooting.
Cain Clark
Who was Cain Clark?
Clark had been a San Diego School of Creative and Performing Arts student before he was enrolled in online learning in 2021, San Diego Unified School District spokesperson James Canning told CNN.
The teen continued to stay involved in his local high school’s campus activities, including Madison High School’s wrestling team who Clark competed with for two years in 2024 and 2025.
‘They took all of their classes online. They talked with teachers online. That was the parent’s choice to move them into that school,’ Canning said.
This year, however, Clark did not participate in any events or activities, the outlet reported.
‘It’s important to point out that, this year, that student was not on campus at all,’ Canning added.
The teenager had been on track to graduate and was said to have had no disciplinary record, aside from one report of punching someone in the leg in elementary school in 2015, Canning said.
A former teammate on the team said Clark had never expressed notions of Islamophobia, violence or racially charged viewpoints, and that the teenager had been finding community among the other wrestlers, according to the outlet.
Former Teammate Speaks Out on Suspect
‘He seemed like he was a good kid,’ the teammate, who has not been identified, told CNN.
‘He didn’t seem like he would do something like that. The kid was trying to fit in. He was always just trying his best – he was trying to fit in and find friends.’
However, a [self-murder] note found on at Clark’s home appeared to evidence anti-Islamic rhetoric and expressed notions of ‘racial pride,’ sources told the Los Angeles Times.
Hate speech was also found scrawled onto one of the guns.
The note, according to Wahl, ‘began to trigger a larger threat assessment,’ but he added that ‘there was no specific threat, especially no specific threat to the Islamic Center.’
‘It was just general hate kind of speech that I think covered a wide gamut,’ he added.
Hours before the attack, Clark’s mother had called law enforcement to report that her [possibly self-harming] son and car were both missing as well as three weapons, and that he had left her home with another person, according to Wahl.
Clark’s grandparents, David and Deborah Clark, told CNN that they were ‘trying to process’ the catastrophe and are ‘very sorry for what happened.’
@thecrimedesk A security guard was shot dead at the Islamic Center of San Diego on Monday after two gunmen opened fire. The two unnamed assailants were shot dead by police at the Islamic Center of San Diego in Claremont around 11.40am PT on Monday, multiple sources told NBC News. An unidentified security guard was also killed, Ahmed Shabaik, the chairman of the mosque said, according to The New York Times. Multiple injured people were rushed to a Sharp Memorial Hospital after shots rang out, the outlet said. The number of patients and the extent of their injuries remain unknown. �� NBC San Diego / FOX News / AP / Reuters #crime #truecrime #trial #court #news ♬ original sound – The Crime Desk
San Diego mosque shooting suspect’s mom warned police before attack
A California mother desperately tried to alert police that her teenage son and his friend may pose a threat hours before they opened fire at a mosque, killing three people before taking their own lives.
The teenage shooters, identified by NBC News as Cain Clark, 17, and Caleb Vazquez, 18, started spraying bullets outside the Islamic Center of San Diego at around 11.40am on Monday.
But police had already been on the lookout for the two teens, after one of their mothers called officers to report that her son had run away with ‘several of her weapons’ and her vehicle, Chief Scott Wahl said at a news conference.
‘After speaking with the mom, [she] began to piece together bits and pieces of information over an extended period of time,’ he noted.
‘The information that she was gathering and conveying to us began to elevate the threat level…’
Wahl said the call came in at around 9.42am, when the unidentified mother started to express her concerns about her son, who she said was [depressed].
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