Story perspectives

2000 Mourn Heroes After White-Supremacist Attack Kills Three

5/24/2026

Left

Worshippers Saved Children

Over 2,000 mourners gathered in a San Diego park, hailing the slain worshippers as heroes who saved children.
Two white-supremacist shooters opened fire at the Islamic Center of San Diego, killing three men and dying by self-inflicted wounds.
Amin Abdullah radioed lockdown while Mansour Kaziha and Nadir Awad drew shooters away from classrooms.
Police flagged Caleb Vazquez earlier, seized his guns, and investigators found a 75-page Nazi-rhetoric manifesto.

Right

Vazquez Massacre

Investigators found Caleb Vazquez obsessed with Dutch cartoon Mymy Schoppenboer, shown on his TikTok and a plush doll he owned.
Caleb Vazquez and Cain Clark killed three worshippers at San Diego’s Islamic Center before Clark shot Vazquez and himself.
Vazquez’s parents said their autistic son struggled with identity and was drawn to extremist rhetoric.
The local Muslim community called the loss unimaginable trauma and urged healing.

Blindspot

Left coverage emphasised the 75-page manifesto steeped in white-supremacist and accelerationist rhetoric, highlighting the shooters’ ideological motives, which Right coverage did not include.
Right coverage highlighted Vazquez’s fascination with the Dutch cartoon character Mymy Schoppenboer, a detail absent from Left coverage.

History

Historical Context

On June 17 2015, white supremacist Dylann Roof killed nine worshippers at Charleston’s historic Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, later convicted on 33 federal hate-crime counts. The attack revived national debate over Confederate symbols and spurred the Southern Poverty Law Center’s tracking of hate crimes, while a 2017 GAO report showed far-right extremists responsible for the majority of post-9/11 domestic terrorism incidents.

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Worshippers Saved Children

Over 2,000 mourners gathered in a San Diego park, hailing the slain worshippers as heroes who saved children.
Two white-supremacist shooters opened fire at the Islamic Center of San Diego, killing three men and dying by self-inflicted wounds.
Amin Abdullah radioed lockdown while Mansour Kaziha and Nadir Awad drew shooters away from classrooms.
Police flagged Caleb Vazquez earlier, seized his guns, and investigators found a 75-page Nazi-rhetoric manifesto.

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