The case raises serious questions about warning signs missed by those closest to the shooters and highlights the challenges in ensuring the child won’t commit a future act of violence, according to gun violence and legal experts CNN spoke with.
The mother’s calls to police Monday morning painted an alarming picture: Her 17-year-old son was missing, along with several of her weapons and his car.
The boy had left a possible suicide note before vanishing with a man he met online whom she had never seen before – both dressed in camouflage, she told police. Police were still searching for the woman’s son two hours later when they received reports of an active shooter at the city’s largest mosque, the Islamic Center of San Diego, and found the bodies of three men killed in an attack: Amin Abdullah, Mansour Kaziha and Nadir Awad.
Just a few blocks away, her son Cain Clark and 18-year-old Caleb Vazquez, were found dead inside a car with self-inflicted gunshot wounds, according to San Diego Police Chief Scott Wahl. The two teenagers would later be identified by officials as the shooters who carried out the attack. Vazquez was already known to police.
Last year, law enforcement filed a gun violence emergency protective order, after he was placed on a psychiatric hold, to seize firearms in his parents’ home amid concerns about the teenager’s ‘suspicious behavior idolizing Nazis and mass shooters. ’ He had been in a mental health program up until the day before the shooting, a federal law enforcement official told CNN.
The reasons for Vazquez’s release from the mental health facility that day were not disclosed, and the facility declined to provide any details to CNN due to the ongoing investigation and medical privacy laws. While Clark had not been on law enforcement radar, the firearms used in the attack were taken from Clark’s family home, a law enforcement official close to the investigation said.
Authorities are ‘still looking into’ whether they will recommend charges against Clark’s parents, and it’s unclear how the shooters obtained the weapons, the police chief said Tuesday. High school yearbook photo shows Cain Clark, one of San Diego mosque attackers Police have not provided any information on whether Clark’s parents told law enforcement how the firearms were stored, nor have they answered questions about how the guns were accessed.
The case raises serious questions about what, if any, warning signs might have been missed by those closest to the shooters in the days leading up to the attack and highlights how even when red flags are reported by parents and law enforcement – such as in Vazquez’s case – there are challenges in ensuring the child won’t commit a future act of violence, according to gun violence and legal experts CNN spoke with.
There is greater potential parental liability for Clark – who was a minor at the time of the attack – but it will ultimately depend on their prior knowledge of his risk, what steps were or were not taken and whether firearms were secured, according to the experts. The San Diego County District Attorney’s Office declined to share any information regarding potential charges due to the ongoing investigation.
San Diego police also declined to comment, citing a ‘very extensive and sensitive investigation. ’ It would not be unprecedented for a parent to be alleged to be legally responsible for a shooting their child carried out. There have been two notable cases in the past two years in which the parents were convicted: the first involving the parents of Oxford High School shooter Ethan Crumbley, the second, the parents of Apalachee High School shooter Colt Gray.
Police previously ordered shooter’s parents to surrender guns Vazquez’s parents said hateful rhetoric online contributed to their son’s ‘descent into radicalized ideologies and violent beliefs, adding ‘We reject hatred, extremism, bigotry, and violence in every form. ’ ‘Although measures were taken to help him through his mental instability, it ultimately was not enough,’ Vazquez’s parents said in a statement.
‘We repeatedly encouraged him to seek help, and he voluntarily spent time in multiple rehabilitation centers. ’ The family added: ‘We will forever live with the burden of wondering whether there was more we could have done to help prevent this senseless tragedy.
’ Warning signs about Vazquez’s apparent neo-Nazi ideologies were cited in the protective order issued in January last year ordering his father to surrender multiple registered firearms, according to the document, which says the teen had been placed under a 72-hour involuntary psychiatric hold
San Diego Mosque Attack Teenagers As Shooters Parents Charged With Gun Possession Warning Signs Missed Challenges In Preventing Violence Gun Violence And Legal Experts CNN Spoke With
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