On a Monday morning in San Diego, California, a brutal shooting at the Islamic Center of San Diego left three people dead, in what federal authorities are investigating as a targeted hate crime. The two attackers, a 17-year-old and an 18-year-old, died from self-inflicted gunshot wounds shortly after the assault, law enforcement officials confirmed.
The tragic sequence of events unfolded nearly two hours before the mosque attack, when the mother of one of the teens placed an emergency call to local police. She reported that her son had fled home, taken multiple of her firearms and her car, and left behind a handwritten note filled with generalized hate rhetoric. She added that her son was accompanied by another young person, and both were wearing full camouflage clothing. Initially dispatched to follow up on a report of a potentially suicidal runaway, investigators quickly noted the teen’s behavior did not align with the profile of a person in acute suicidal crisis, and began searching local sites including the high school where one of the suspects was enrolled and a shopping mall where the vehicle had last been spotted.
At 11:43 a.m. local time, as responding officers were still interviewing the suspect’s mother just blocks from the Islamic Center, dispatch received a new call reporting an active shooting at the mosque. Arriving officers found three fatally shot victims lying outside the building’s entrance. Among the deceased was an on-site security guard who law enforcement credits with heroic action that prevented a higher death toll, though no additional details on his intervention have been released at this time. No officers fired their weapons during the response, and no active shooter was found on the premises when police swept the building per active shooter protocol.
Minutes after officers secured the mosque, a second report of gunfire came in from a nearby location. The two suspects had opened fire from their vehicle on a local landscaper working in the area. Miraculously, the landscaper escaped without injury; law enforcement says preliminary reports suggest a bullet aimed at his head was deflected by his protective hard hat, though this detail is still under verification. When officers arrived at the second scene, they found both suspects already dead from self-inflicted gunshot wounds.
The Islamic Center of San Diego campus is also home to the Al Rashid School, which offers religious and language instruction, meaning children were present on the grounds when the attack began. Aerial footage captured by local news outlets shows children being escorted hand-in-hand out of the campus by emergency personnel through the center’s parking lot, while all nearby schools were immediately placed on full lockdown as a safety precaution.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation confirmed it is treating the incident as a hate crime, after the handwritten note left by one suspect was recovered. San Diego Police Chief Scott Wahl told reporters that while the note contained no explicit threat targeting the mosque or any other specific site or individual, the targeting of a major Islamic place of worship, combined with the hate-filled content of the note, leads investigators to presume the attack was motivated by bias.
One retired local witness, who was eating lunch at his home near the mosque when the shooting began, told reporters he counted roughly 30 shots total from what he described as a semi-automatic weapon, split between two bursts of around a dozen shots separated by a short pause. He noted that the mosque is far more crowded on Fridays and during major religious holidays, saying “It’s a good thing it didn’t happen on a Friday, because the streets would be full of people.”
The attack comes just days before Eid al-Adha, the “Festival of Sacrifice,” one of the two holiest major holidays in the Islamic faith, when Muslim communities gather with family to commemorate the prophet Ibrahim’s obedience to God. Imam Taha Hassane, director of the Islamic Center of San Diego, called the attack on a house of worship “extremely outrageous” in a press conference, emphasizing “this facility is a house of worship, not a battlefield.”
California Governor Gavin Newsom released a statement condemning the violence, saying he was horrified by the attack on a space where “families and children gather, and neighbors worship in peace and fellowship.” He added that the state of California “will not tolerate acts of terror or intimidation against communities of faith.” At an unrelated White House event Monday, US President Donald Trump called the shooting a “terrible situation,” saying he had received early briefings and that authorities would conduct a full, thorough review of the incident.
As of Monday, the investigation remains ongoing, and the FBI has issued a public call for any member of the community with relevant information, including photos or video from the area taken that morning, to contact investigators to assist with the case.