Parents of San Diego Mosque Shooter Claim Mental‑Health Facility Ignored FBI Warning

Just days before two teenagers opened fire inside a San Diego mosque, federal agents reached out to the parents of one of the shooters, warning them that their son was posting disturbing, school‑shooting‑related messages on the dark web. The warning, delivered on the evening of May 14, 2026, set off a chain of frantic phone calls, notes to therapists, and, ultimately, a lawsuit.

Caleb Vazquez, then 18, was living at Park Mental Health Treatment of San Diego, a facility that bills itself as offering everything from 24‑hour monitoring to conventional counseling. According to the complaint filed in San Diego County Superior Court on Aug. 31, his mother says she immediately passed the FBI’s alert on to the center’s staff, then again to her son’s therapist the next day, and later to a program director that same night.

“We told them everything,” the mother, who wishes to remain unnamed, told the court. “We hoped they would step in, that someone would keep Caleb from hurting himself or anyone else.” Yet, on the morning of May 18 – the day the massacre unfolded – the facility called her to say Vazquez was missing. Surveillance footage later showed him leaving the premises around 8 p.m. the previous evening.

Vazquez and a 17‑year‑old accomplice, identified as Cain Clark, proceeded to the mosque, killed three worshippers and then turned the gun on themselves. Their parents, still searching for Vazquez that morning, never imagined the horror that awaited them.

The lawsuit argues that Park Mental Health failed to act on clear, imminent‑danger signals. It points to earlier red flags: a three‑day hospital stay in January after Vazquez told a classmate he wanted to carry out a school shooting, and a 2025 incident where law‑enforcement flagged him for extremist, Nazi‑idolizing behavior, leading to the seizure of 26 guns from his father under California’s gun‑removal law.

Park Mental Health has not responded to a request for comment, but a prior statement to KPBS radio dismissed the claims, calling the suit “misguided” and insisting that only Vazquez and his co‑conspirator were responsible for their actions.

The FBI declined to comment, citing policy, while the broader conversation about mental‑health oversight, warning‑system communication, and parental responsibility continues to echo across the nation, especially as other recent cases have seen guardians prosecuted for providing weapons to teen shooters.

As the community mourns, the lawsuit adds another layer of legal and moral complexity to a tragedy that still feels raw and unsettling.