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, according to the sources. The FBI confirmed Tuesday that it is examining a manifesto, but did not verify the one circulating online that purports to be the attackers’ writings.

The Times has reviewed those writings, which espoused hate toward Muslims, Jews, Blacks and Latinos and the LGBTQ+ community.

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.

Authorities have identified the deceased shooters as Cain Lee Clark, 17, and Caleb Liam Vazquez, 18.

The Times found social media accounts under the usernames Clark identified as his and those linked to accounts showing school shootings as video games, and a dozen profile photographs that show the user dressed in camouflage, a grimacing skull mask, before a Confederate flag, wearing emblems associated with Nazism ideology. In an image uploaded in April, the masked author shows the book, a collection of essays by a militant neo-Nazi who advocated “lone wolf” terrorism in the cause of white revolution.

Mark Remily, FBI special agent in charge of the San Diego office, said the suspects left behind a manifesto — writings “outlining religious and racial beliefs about how the world they envision should look like.” “These suspects did not discriminate on who they hated,” Remily said.

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 online. Remily confirmed that the pair met online.

In the writings reviewed by the Times, Vasquez advocates for the destruction of the political system and “all out race war for the purpose of societal collapse.” Clark describes himself as a “Christian EcoFascist.” An Anti-Defamation League analysis noted the writings heavily reference the great replacement theory — the belief that white people are being replaced by nonwhite immigrants.

The pair portrayed themselves as building on the work of multiple mass killers, from Tarrant to the Buffalo, New York, supermarket attacker to the assailant of the Chabad of Poway, California.

They also applauded Elliot Rodger, the 22-year-old who in 2014 killed six people in Isla Vista, near Santa Barbara, and left behind his own manifesto that advocated for the incel movement.

Brian Levin, chair of California’s Commission on Hate, said the attack may reflect a contagion spreading among extremist youth.

Levin, a former New York police officer who founded California State University, San Bernardino’s Center for the Study of Extremism, said, like their predecessors, the shooters are using writings — and possibly video — to get their message out.

“They reference Tarrant and several other extremist killers, and it seems they are continuing the chain of manifestos with respect to young Nazis feeding on the manifestos of previous killers,” he said.

As part of the investigation, federal officials have 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 30 guns, several pistols, rifles, shotguns, ammunition, tactical gear, as well as electronics, he 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. At least one gore website that promotes death videos had a video from the pair, according to the ADL.

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 suspects’ 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.

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