Two teenage gunmen live-streamed themselves shooting three people dead at a mosque and apparently left behind a 75-page hate-filled manifesto.
Cain Clark, 17, and Caleb Vasquez, 18, described themselves as “disciples” of a man who had carried out a mass shooting against Muslims in New Zealand and praised Adolf Hitler.
The shooters killed a security guard, a caretaker and a community member at the Islamic Centre of San Diego on Monday. The three victims apprehended and distracted the killers, saving the lives of the 140 children inside.
Clark and Vasquez fled the scene and minutes later died from self-inflicted gunshot wounds in a car, where they left Nazi stickers and anti-Islam hate messages.
An SS sticker is seen on an oil cannister left behind at the scene – Michael Ho Wai Lee/Anadolu
Police have not yet commented on a motive, but said they believed the teenagers had been “radicalised online” and are investigating the killings as a hate crime.
The FBI on Tuesday said investigators had recovered a written “manifesto” that expressed a “broad hatred” for different religions and races.
A lengthy document, attributed to the two gunmen and reviewed by The Telegraph, shows a hatred for Muslims, Jewish people, ethnic minorities, women and the LGBTQ community.
The pages feature swastikas and white supremacist imagery that match the symbols on their guns and clothing, as seen during the highly graphic video of their attack.
Law enforcement officers respond to the shooting at the Islamic Center of San Diego
The authors of what they call their “debut manifesto” describe themselves as “sons of Tarrant”, a reference to Brenton Tarrant, the far-Right white supremacist who killed 51 people in mass shootings at two different mosques in Christchurch, before trying to drive to a third in March 2019.
Tarrant is referred to as a “saint”, and “obviously both of our biggest inspiration” in the documents.
“We are proud and honoured to be the next in the now long chain of his disciples, and we hope to make him proud and honour his legacy,” Vazquez apparently wrote.
The FBI is investigating a livestreamed video that depicts the San Diego mosque shooters carrying out their attack before ultimately taking their own lives
The manifesto also contained references to the 1999 Columbine High School massacre, in which two students killed 13 pupils. It has been linked to dozens of copycat attacks across the US.
The jumbled, half-finished writings also praise Hitler, calling the Nazi leader “the greatest man to ever walk this earth”.
It refers heavily to the “Great Replacement” theory, which claims the ancestral European population is being replaced by modern migrants, an idea often regurgitated by far-Right groups.
Vazquez appears to describe himself as involved in the “online incel culture” and alludes to his own “mental issues”, stating that they “will come out eventually”.
Later, he writes: “Why am I like this? IT IS BECAUSE OF ALL THESE YEARS OF RIDICULE, REJECTION, BEING IGNORED AND BEING TREATED LIKE A JOKE.”
The next section, attributed to Clark, a homeschooled wrestler, then talks at length about his hatred of other races and non-Christians.
Cain Clark is one of the deceased suspects in the San Diego mosque shooting – New York Post/Instagram
Its title page reads: “Death to the World” and features a black sun symbol, associated with neo-Nazism.
Both of the suspects wore the Nazi symbol during the attacks and police found a petrol can with an “SS” symbol, an apparent reference to the Nazi paramilitary organisation, at the scene.
Their writing and symbolism also echo elements of previous mass shooters that fit into the newer category of “nihilistic violent extremists”.
“Nihilism”, the desire to cause chaos and destruction without a coherent ideology, is considered a rising threat across North America and Europe. Nihilistic violent extremist groups online often promote white supremacy, but are largely driven by a sense of hatred for society as a whole.