Police Seized Guns From Home of San Diego Mosque Shooter in 2025

Police obtained a court order to confiscate guns from Caleb Vazquez’s father after alarming behavior years before a mosque attack in San Diego. Court documents and a January 2025 protective order described suspicious behavior involving idolizing Nazis and mass shooters. Caleb Vazquez had been placed on an involuntary psychiatric hold at some point. The gun violence restraining order was filed under California’s 2014 law, which allows temporary weapon removal when violence risk is suspected. The order targeted Marco Vazquez, who had 12 registered guns. Police said he would not allow officers to confirm proper storage. Caleb Vazquez and Cain Clark attacked the Islamic Center of San Diego and died minutes later in a nearby vehicle.

"More than a year before Caleb Vazquez and a friend attacked a mosque in San Diego and killed three people, the police were so alarmed by Mr. Vazquez's behavior that they secured a court order to confiscate his father's guns. Child was involved in suspicious behavior idolizing nazis and mass shooters, a police officer wrote in a January 2025 protective order. Mr. Vazquez, who was 18 when he was found dead on Monday shortly after the police say he and a friend attacked the Islamic Center of San Diego, had at some point been placed in an involuntary psychiatric hold, according to court documents."

"The court papers show that Mr. Vazquez had been on the authorities' radar long before the shooting at the mosque. They also raise questions about why the authorities, knowing what they knew, were unable to prevent the massacre. The California Legislature in 2014 allowed the family and friends of people who might be violent, as well as the police and other parties, to seek a court order to temporarily confiscate weapons through measures known as gun violence restraining orders. The law was a response to a mass shooting that year near the campus of the University of California, Santa Barbara."

"The order to take guns from the Vazquez household was filed against Mr. Vazquez's father, Marco Vazquez, who the police said in the court documents had 12 guns registered to him. The order was filed by the police department in Chula Vista, Calif., a San Diego suburb where the Vazquezes live. The police said in the court filing that the elder Mr. Vazquez would not allow officers to confirm if firearms were stored properly."

"The San Diego police and the F.B.I. said that Caleb Vazquez and Cain Clark, 17, attacked the mosque and then took their own lives minutes later. They were found dead of gunshot wounds in a white BMW a few blocks from the Islamic Center of San Diego, the largest mosque in San Diego County. In a court affidavit last year, Marco Vazquez said that he was well aware of the seri"

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