San Diego gunman ‘worshipped Nazis and mass shooters,’ prompting gun removal from home in 2025.

15 months before Caleb Liam Vazquez shot three men at the San Diego Islamic Center, Chula Vista police obtained a court order to remove his father’s many guns.

Vazquez, 18, had been receiving psychiatric treatment in the days leading up to Monday’s attack, having previously been hospitalized by authorities.

His parents, after all, said he was caught up in a web of online hate, and the tragic events came after repeated voluntary trips to rehab centers.

Vazquez entered the authorities’ radar in January 2025, when concerns arose about his mental health. Chula Vista police filed a gun violence restraining order against his father, Marco Vazquez, with the officer writing that the boy “engaged in suspicious Nazi-serving behavior with multiple shooters.”

The police did this after being notified of the teenager’s posts on social media using the 2014 law that Elliot Rodger shot and killed six people in Isla Vista, Calif.

According to San Diego Superior Court records, the officer noted that Caleb Vazquez was “placed in the 5150 zone” – where a person is considered a danger to himself or others and is held for 72 hours against his will – and that his father, who had 12 registered guns, refused to “allow the police to verify that the guns are properly stored.”

In the declaration of the court, Marco Vazquez admitted that he refused to enter his house to the police, who were going to check on his son. But he said, he told them the guns were locked in a safe and his son had no access to them.

“I am well aware of the seriousness of the allegations against my son,” Vazquez wrote in his court declaration. “That’s why my wife and I took the initiative to remove all guns, ammunition and other items from our house and secure all sharp knives at home….”

He went on to say that later that day, he transferred his guns (he listed 27 as his and two for his wife) to a gun license holder in National City for safekeeping and told the police the same. Despite the referral, he wrote that he was given a gun violence prevention order.

Marco Vazquez wrote in his declaration that he has never threatened anyone or supported “any violent ideology such as Nazism, racism, school shootings or mass shootings.” He added that he and his wife now monitor their son’s online communication, work with his school, and that their son regularly attends therapy. The New York Times first reported some of the details of the court order on Thursday.

According to a law-enforcement source, the FBI was alerted to Vazquez’s behavior — a recurring pattern in thousands of such incidents across the country. The FBI did not comment on its information about Vazquez.

Chula Vista police did not return calls and text messages seeking comment.

Caleb Vazquez, 18, and Cain Clark, 17, went to the Mosque on Monday morning with a plan to kill more people. They were chased away by the security guard for a while, he and the other two who died in the parking lot, reported the attack to the people of the center and the police, and saved their lives. The attackers were found dead with self-inflicted wounds.

A lawyer for the Vazquez family said they are “deeply sorry for the pain and damage caused” and that their son’s actions “do not reflect the values ​​we raised our family with or the beliefs we hold in our hearts.”

“Over the past few days, our family has been trying to process the horrific actions our son committed against the Islamic Center San Diego Community,” attorney Colin Rudolph said in a statement.

“We want to start by acknowledging that nothing we say or do can undo the damage caused by his actions. We are deeply saddened and frustrated by what happened. We absolutely condemn these acts of hate and violence.”

The parents said, “Our son’s views do not match our morals or values ​​as a family.” Coming from a diverse family that includes not only immigrants but also Muslims, we were always taught the importance of acceptance, compassion, and love for each other.

A Times investigation found that both shooters were heavily indoctrinated by white supremacy on the Internet and were part of an extremist online community. They left behind a 75-page document that preached hate, anti-Islamic and anti-Semitic views and encouraged violence and disorder, law enforcement sources familiar with the investigation told The Times.

The Times reviewed those articles, which promoted hatred toward Muslims, Jews, Black people, Latinos and the LGBTQ+ community. The Times also identified social media accounts believed to be used by one of the shooters who worshiped school shootings, white nationalists and neo-Nazi terrorism, and were flooded with messages from the extremist online community.

In writings reviewed by the Times, Vazquez advocates the destruction of the political system and “all-out race war for the purpose of social disintegration.”

Vazquez had attended High Tech High School, Chula Vista Charter School, the school we welcomed to parents this week in a letter. The school did not return messages for comment.

In their statement, Vazquez’s parents revealed that their son was “on the autism spectrum, and it has become painfully clear to us that he not only struggled to accept certain parts of himself but also grew to resent them.”

“We believe that this, combined with exposure to hate speech, extremist content, and propaganda spread in certain parts of the Internet, social media, and other online platforms, contributed to his descent into radical ideas and violent beliefs. While there is no excuse for his actions, we have seen how dangerous online spaces are that normalize hate.”

The family said, “he voluntarily spent time in many rehabilitation centers,” but in the end it was not enough. We will forever live with the burden of wondering if there was more we could have done to prevent this senseless tragedy.”