Published: 19 May 2026 | Source: San Diego Police Department, FBI San Diego Field Office, CNN

SAN DIEGO — 3 killed in shooting at San Diego’s largest mosque on Monday, including a security guard who police say “saved lives” by running toward the gunfire, as authorities investigate the attack as a hate crime. Two teenage suspects, aged 17 and 18, were found dead in a vehicle near the Islamic Center of San Diego from self-inflicted gunshot wounds. Hate speech was scrawled on one of the weapons, according to law enforcement officials. A suicide note containing writings about racial pride was also recovered. The mother of one suspect had called 911 roughly two hours before the attack to report her son missing, suicidal, and in possession of three weapons taken from the family home.

How the Attack Unfolded

San Diego Police Chief Scott Wahl provided a detailed timeline of the events on Monday. At 9:42 a.m., police received a call from a mother reporting her son missing, along with several weapons and a vehicle from her home. She said her son was suicidal and was with another person, both dressed in camouflage.

Police escalated the call into a larger threat assessment, using license plate readers to locate the vehicle and dispatching officers to Madison High School due to a possible connection to one of the suspects San Diego Police Department press briefing, 19 May 2026.

At 11:43 a.m., police were notified of an active shooter at the Islamic Center of San Diego in the Clairemont neighbourhood. Officers arrived four minutes later and found three deceased victims outside the mosque. They began a room-by-room active-shooter response, breaching doors in search of suspects.

A landscaper working a few blocks from the mosque was shot at from a vehicle, with a bullet deflecting off his helmet. Moments later, officers found the suspect vehicle with both teenagers dead inside.

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The Victims and the Heroic Security Guard

The three victims were adult men. Their identities will be released in the days ahead, Wahl said. One was a security guard and father of eight who “sacrificed his life” to protect people inside the mosque, according to his friend Sam Hamideh, who spoke to CNN CNN interview with Sam Hamideh, 19 May 2026.

Inside the mosque, a school operates for kindergarten through third grade. Hamideh’s middle child was in class during the shooting. Every morning, the security guard would run to the car when Hamideh or his wife dropped off their child. That morning, the guard told Hamideh’s wife, “Say hello to Sam.”

“I didn’t know it was his goodbye,” Hamideh said. “That was crushing. I know that he knew he was sacrificing his life for the kids. Because if he didn’t take that bullet, they would easily walk up the stairs.”

Wahl described the guard’s actions as “heroic,” adding that he “saved lives today.” Officials are still determining whether the guard engaged the suspects directly.

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The Suspects and the Investigation

A law enforcement source and police dispatch identified the 17-year-old suspect as Cain Clark. He attended Kate Sessions Elementary School and the San Diego School of Creative and Performing Arts before his family enrolled him in iHigh Virtual Academy, an online schooling programme, in 2021, according to James Canning, a spokesperson for the San Diego Unified School District.

Clark wrestled for Madison High School in 2024 and 2025. The school’s wrestling team posted on Instagram, congratulating him in January 2024 for taking first place at a tournament. He had not participated in any school activities this year.

A former wrestling teammate, who asked not to be named, told CNN that Clark “seemed like he was a good kid” who was “trying to fit in and find friends.” The teammate said he had never heard Clark expressing Islamophobic or racially motivated sentiments.

Clark’s grandparents, David and Deborah Clark, told CNN outside their home: “We’re trying to process this. We’re very sorry for what happened.”

The FBI is on site at the mosque with special agents, task force officers, evidence response personnel, victim specialists, and bomb technicians who cleared the suspect vehicle, said Mark Remily of the FBI San Diego field office FBI San Diego field office statement, 19 May 2026.

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