At approximately 11:43 a.m., the San Diego Police Department received reports of an active shooter at the Islamic Center of San Diego in Clairemont. Law enforcement identified two male suspects: 17-year-old Cain Clark and 18-year-old Caleb Vazquez. According to NBC, authorities found Clark and Vazquez dead from self-inflicted gunshot wounds inside of a vehicle about half a mile away from the mosque.
Scott Wahl, chief of the SDPD, verified that authorities arrived on the scene within four minutes of the initial report. At 2 p.m., the SDPD said that five individuals died in the shooting, including the two suspects and three adult men. An ICSD security guard, Amin Abdulla, was among the victims of the shooting. Wahl said the shooting will be investigated as a hate crime.
Clark’s mother reported her son missing two hours prior to the shooting, alongside three guns and her vehicle. The SDPD was already looking for Clark when it received reports of the active shooters.
The SDPD also received calls about active gunfire in the surrounding neighborhood during its response to the attack on the Islamic Center. A landscaper on the 7100 block of Salerno, a street near ICSD, expressed he was shot at but was not hit. Lockdowns were instated for surrounding San Diego Unified School District schools shortly after the active shooter reports.
The ICSD is the largest mosque in San Diego County, according to its website. It serves as a religious center for the Muslim community, offering daily prayers, seminars, sermons, and educational events. An Islamic school was in session in the mosque during the shooting, the Council on American-Islamic Relations reported.
Following the incident, Taha Hassane, imam and director of ICSD, expressed the importance of ICSD.
“Our Islamic center is a place of worship. People come to the Islamic center to pray, to celebrate, to learn,” he said. “Not only Muslims, but we have people from all walks of life. Just this morning, earlier, a group of people, non-Muslims, came to learn about our faith and our cultures. So this is something that we have never expected.”
Tazheen Nizam, executive director of CAIR San Diego, released a statement around 1 p.m. denouncing the attack.
“We strongly condemn this horrifying act of violence at the Islamic Center of San Diego,” the statement read. “Our thoughts are with everyone impacted by this attack. No one should ever fear for their safety while attending prayers or studying at an elementary school. We are working to learn more about this incident and we encourage everyone to keep this community in your prayers.”
San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria responded to the incident in a press conference at the ICSD at 2 p.m.
“I want to assure our Muslim community that we will do everything it takes to make sure that you can feel safe in this city, and no resource will be spared in making sure that our religious institutions and locations are protected in this sensitive time,” he said. “But to reassert, as I always will, hate has no place in the city of San Diego.”
The UCSD Guardian will provide updates on the investigation as they become available.
