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San Diego attackers' hate manifesto targeted many groups, sought 'destruction of political system,' sources say

Richard Winton, Los Angeles Times on

Published in News & Features

The gunman who killed three people at the San Diego Islamic Center left behind a 75-page document that preached hate, anti-Islam and antisemitism and promoted violence and chaos, law enforcement sources familiar with the investigation told the Los Angeles Times.

The manifesto was titled “The New Crusade: Sons of Tarrant” and made reference to Brenton Tarrant, who killed 51 people and injured 89 more in an attack on a mosque and an Islamic center in Christchurch, New Zealand, in 2019, the sources said.

The Times has reviewed the writings, which the sources said espoused hate toward Muslims, Jews, Blacks and Latinos and the LGBTQ+ community. The sources comment anonymously because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the case.

Investigators are trying to determine a motive for the Monday attack, which they have classified as a likely hate crime. They have been interviewing family and friends of the suspects, who died of self-inflicted wounds as police closed in on them, and probed their digital footprint.

Although authorities have not named the suspects, sources have identified them as Cain Clark and Caleb Vazquez.

The Times found social media accounts under the usernames Cain identified as his and those link to accounts showing school shootings as video games, and show the user dressed in camouflage, a skull mask, before a Confederate flag wearing emblems associated with Nazism ideology.

Mark Remily, FBI special agent in charge of the San Diego office, said the suspects left behind writings “outlining religious and racial beliefs about how the world they envision should look like.”

But officials didn’t provide any details about the writings or ideology, adding that they were still going through electronic devices and examining the suspects’ online presence to determine how they were radicalized.

Federal officials also executed three search warrants, which resulted in the discovery of more than 30 firearms and a crossbow at two of the locations, Remily said.

 

Officials seized several pistols, rifles, shotguns, ammunition, tactical gear, as well as electronics, he said.

“These suspects did not discriminate on who they hated,” Remily said.

According to law enforcement sources, the FBI is investigating a livestream feed of the attack or the aftermath from inside the BMW that captures the suspects in combat outfits that include Nazi symbols with guns visible.

The attackers opened fire at the center Monday morning around 11:30 a.m., authorities said.

One of the guns had hate speech written on it, law enforcement sources told the Times, and anti-Islamic writings were found in a vehicle.

Earlier in the morning, police said, one of the suspect’s mothers frantically called authorities to say her son had left a suicide note and that guns were missing. She told them her son left with a companion wearing camouflage outfits. Officers were interviewing her when the first reports of the active shooting occurred.

An Anti-Defamation League analysis of the manifesto referenced “the great replacement theory,” the belief that white people are being replaced in their countries by non-white immigrants. The ADL cited a line from the writings: “I believe that accelerating towards the destruction of our current political system and towards an all-out race war for the purpose of a societal collapse is the only real way forward ... ”

The writing reportedly also cited other attacks including a mass shooting at a Jewish temple in the San Diego-area community of Poway several years ago.


©2026 Los Angeles Times. Visit at latimes.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

 

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