The gunmen 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, Black people and Latinos and the LGBTQ+ community. The Times also identified social media accounts believed to be used by one of the shooters that idolized school shootings, the white nationalism movement and neo-Nazi terrorism and were flush with memes from the online far-right extremist 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 investigating their digital footprint.

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

The attackers opened fire at the center Monday about 11:30 a.m., authorities said. During a news conference Tuesday, authorities described a security guard there as a hero who engaged the shooters in a gun battle before he was killed. The attackers entered a building but were drawn outside when they spotted two men in the parking lot, killing them.

One of the attackers’ 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’ mother 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.

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 and a grimacing skull mask before a Confederate flag, wearing emblems associated with Nazism. In an image uploaded in April, the masked author shows the book “Siege,” a collection of essays by a militant neo-Nazi who advocated “lone wolf” terrorism in the cause of white revolution.

These accounts on TikTok, SnapChat and Telegram amassed several hundred followers without signs of having been censored. The Times could not authenticate that Clark was the creator, but the images, dates and content aligned with the manifesto as well as his personal life.

In one, he flashes the “OK” hand symbol that, thanks to 4Chan, became linked to the white nationalist movement.

Another is the “Postal Dude,” a video game character who commits mass murder in a fictional small town.

Yet in another profile photo, a youthful Clark smiles directly into a mirror, with a computer-generated blond wig before the mythic Aryan world of Agartha — a popular neo-Nazi meme.

The social media posts are thick with references to extremist social media and far-right influencers. The phrase “groyper,” used in one of the account names, is a handle used by followers of Nick Fuentes, whose far-right political discourse has inflamed a generation of young male followers, including those who attended the 2017 white supremacist Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Va., that killed three.

One of the Telegram channels carried a thread on “friendship” that included images from the movie “Zero Day,” a fictional telling of the teens involved in the 2019 Columbine school massacre.

“Hey man, why did you include zero day ... ,” a follower asked.

“I like the movie,” the author replied.

Mark Remily, FBI special agent in charge of the San Diego office, said the manifesto outlined “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 supermarket attacker to the Chabad of Poway assailant.

They also applauded Elliot Rodger, the 22-year-old who in 2014 killed six people in Isla Vista, Calif., 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 youths.

Levin, a former New York police officer who founded Cal State 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. “For hard-right accelerationists, like these ... this amalgam of hatreds against those accused of invading and perverting society, justify not only violence upon those particular groups and failed corrupt politicians, but more broadly a civil war leading to the destruction of society itself.”

What makes these kinds of extremists so dangerous when they choose to act, Levin said, is that their list of targets is so expansive that it can “make the most hated targets somewhat interchangeable based not only on animus, but opportunity. “

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, including several pistols, rifles and shotguns, and 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 a 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 Times has not been able to verify the sourcing of video circulating online of the deadly attack and eventual suicide inside the BMW. But the imagery available shows the teens inside the BMW X1 as they drove in the attack on the street outside the Islamic Center, shooting their weapons multiple times and entering a building while carrying at least one rifle. The video concludes with their deaths inside the vehicle.

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