One of the two teenagers who the police said killed three people at a mosque in San Diego on Monday was a onetime high-school wrestler whose disciplinary record had been clean since elementary school.
While the police in San Diego have not publicly named either suspect, two law enforcement officials briefed on the matter identified the teenagers as Cain Clark, 17, the former high school wrestler; and Caleb Vazquez, 18. The teenagers, both from San Diego, were found dead on Monday afternoon in a white BMW, where investigators found a gas can with Nazi S.S. insignia on it.
The officials asked not to be named, because they were not authorized to divulge details of the case publicly.
James Canning, a spokesman for the San Diego Unified School District, said Mr. Clark had been scheduled to graduate this year from iHigh Virtual Academy, an online school within the district. He said that Mr. Clark had not had any disciplinary infractions since elementary school.
Mr. Clark was a member of the wrestling team at Madison High School last year, but had not been involved in extracurricular activities this year, Mr. Canning said.
Efforts to reach relatives and associates of Mr. Vazquez were unsuccessful Tuesday morning. A man who answered the door at the family’s duplex home in a cul-de-sac in a quiet neighborhood said he would not speak with a reporter. Neighbors said they saw detectives and police officers at the home overnight and on Tuesday morning.
For two hours before the shooting occurred at the mosque, police were searching for the two teenagers in San Diego, California’s second largest city, after Mr. Clark’s mother called the police and said her son was missing. She also said she couldn’t find several of her guns, that her car was missing and that her son was probably with a friend.
The police, fearing that they teens might have been planning violence, used license plate reader technology to track them, and sent officers to a mall. The police also went to Madison High School.
Police have said they are investigating the attack as a hate crime and have already found materials that suggested the teenagers were motivated by hatred and bigotry. Investigators recovered anti-Islamic writing in the car where the suspects were found dead of gunshot wounds, according to the two law enforcement officials. The words “hate speech” were written on one of the guns used in the attack.
Three men were killed at the mosque. They were identified by several Muslim organizations as Amin Abdullah, a security guard at the center; Mansour Kaziha, manager of the mosque store; and Nader Awad.
Chief Scott Wahl of the San Diego Police Department told reporters on Monday they had not found any threats directed at specific places but “generalized hate rhetoric and speech” in the evidence.
Pooja Salhotra contributed reporting.
Tim Arango is a correspondent covering national news. He is based in Los Angeles.
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