Three people were killed Monday afternoon at the Islamic Center of San Diego when two armed suspects opened fire on the Clairemont neighborhood mosque complex before being found dead from self-inflicted gunshot wounds nearby.
San Diego Police Chief Scott Wahl confirmed the deaths of all three victims, a mosque security guard and two staff members of the Al Rashid Weekend School housed on the center’s grounds, and announced that both suspects, males aged 17 and 18, were dead. The FBI has committed resources to the investigation. Police are treating it as a hate crime.
“Because of the Islamic Centre location, we are considering this a hate crime until it’s not,” Wahl told reporters at a news conference Monday afternoon.
The attack targeted the largest mosque in San Diego County, a place the center’s own imam described as one where people of all backgrounds come to worship, learn and celebrate.
It left a community in mourning, a school closed indefinitely, and a country confronting another act of targeted violence against a house of worship.
What Happened And How It Unfolded
San Diego police received a 911 call at 11:43 AM local time reporting an active shooter at the Islamic Center of San Diego on Eckstrom Avenue in the Clairemont neighborhood, approximately eight miles north of downtown San Diego.
Officers arrived within four minutes and found three victims dead outside the center. At roughly the same time, authorities began receiving reports of additional gunfire several blocks away.
Aerial video from NBC San Diego captured a massive law enforcement presence at the mosque, dozens of officers, some with weapons drawn, others escorting children and an adult from the center.
The scene was declared active but contained by approximately 1 PM local time, roughly one hour after the initial 911 call, and the threat was described as neutralized.
The two suspects, dressed in camouflage, were found dead in a car in the middle of a street near the mosque. Both had died from what Wahl described as self-inflicted gunshot wounds.
The vehicle and its occupants were discovered as law enforcement worked to account for all parties to the attack.
Wahl described the response from the center’s security guard in terms that acknowledged both the guard’s death and the sacrifice it represented.
“I think he played a pivotal role in assisting from this being much worse,” Wahl said. “I think it’s fair to say his actions were heroic, and undoubtedly he saved lives today.”
The Warning That Came Two Hours Before The Shooting
The most specific and painful detail of Monday’s timeline is what happened before the shooting began.
Approximately two hours before the 911 call reporting an active shooter, the mother of one of the suspects called San Diego police to report that her 17-year-old son was suicidal, had gone missing along with another person, had taken her car and had left home with three weapons.
The number of weapons the teenager had taken from the home was significant enough that investigators believed he may represent a threat to others rather than solely to himself.
Wahl confirmed that the call triggered what he described as a “larger threat assessment picture.” Police were actively investigating the reported missing juvenile and the weapons when the shooting began.
The sequence is not an accusation against the mother, who did what parents are supposed to do when they are frightened for their child and for others, she called the police.
What the sequence reflects is the compressed, brutal timeline of an event that moved from a worried mother’s phone call to three people dead in approximately two hours.
Wahl was asked directly what the police did between the mother’s call and the shooting.
The investigation into the sequence of events and the police response during that window is ongoing and will be a central question in the days ahead.
The Evidence That Points To A Hate Crime
The investigation into motive has produced early evidence that investigators are treating as significant. One of the suspects left behind a suicide note containing references to racial pride.
Hate speech was scrawled on one of the weapons recovered at the scene, Wahl described the writings as covering “a wide gamut” but said they contained no specific threat to the Islamic Center specifically, describing the language as “more generalized” in nature.
Law enforcement officials briefed on the investigation told the New York Times that Islamophobic writing was also recovered in the car where the suspects were found dead.
None of those details individually establishes motive with legal certainty, which is why Wahl framed the investigation as treating the attack as a hate crime while remaining open to evidence that might change that characterization.
The direction of the available evidence, the location, the weapons, the note, the writing, points consistently toward a targeted ideological attack rather than a random act of violence.
The FBI’s involvement in the investigation reflects both the federal government’s jurisdiction over hate crimes and the agency’s specific expertise in investigating domestic terrorism and racially or religiously motivated violence.
The bureau committed all necessary resources Monday afternoon. The investigation is expected to involve a significant federal component alongside the San Diego Police Department’s own inquiry.
The Center And Its Community
The Islamic Center of San Diego is the largest mosque in San Diego County. It houses both the mosque itself and the Al Rashid Weekend School, which provides Arabic language instruction and Islamic studies classes to children in the community.
The school’s staff members were among those killed in Monday’s attack, people who came to work at a religious school on a Monday morning and did not come home.
The center’s imam, Taha Hassane, spoke publicly Monday about what the center represents and what Monday’s attack means for the community it serves.
“It is extremely outrageous to target a place of worship,” Hassane said. “Our Islamic centre is a place of worship.” He described the center as a place where people, including non-Muslims, come together to pray, learn and celebrate, and characterized it as the kind of open, community-oriented institution that the attack’s apparent ideology was designed to destroy.
The center issued a statement Monday evening announcing it would be closed until further notice and establishing a Victim and Family Support Fund for those affected.
“This has been an extremely painful and traumatic day for our congregation, students, staff, and the broader San Diego community,” the statement read. “We are deeply grateful to the first responders, emergency personnel, security team members, and community leaders who acted swiftly during this crisis. Their courage and professionalism helped protect lives during an unimaginable situation.”
The Official Response
San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria spoke to the Muslim community directly in his public statement. “Hate has no place in San Diego,” he said. “Our prayers are with you.” California Governor Gavin Newsom was briefed on the situation and his office coordinated with local law enforcement.
“We are grateful to the first responders on the scene working to protect the community,” the governor’s office said in a statement.
President Trump was asked about the shooting and said he had received early briefings and described the attack as “terrible.”
The shooting at the Islamic Center of San Diego is the latest in a long history of attacks on houses of worship in the United States, a category of violence that crosses religious and racial lines and that has produced some of the most consequential moments in the country’s ongoing confrontation with hate-motivated domestic violence.
Investigators will now work to understand the full picture of what happened, how it was planned, what warning signs existed beyond the mother’s Monday morning phone call, and what it means for the broader community that the attack targeted.
The center’s statement closed with a prayer. “May Allah grant healing to the injured, mercy to those who lost their lives, and strength to everyone impacted by this tragedy.”
