Lawsuit says treatment facility missed FBI warnings before mosque shooting

Filing follows convictions of guardians who supplied weapons used in mass shootings

The mother of Caleb Vazquez, one of two teenagers who carried out a mass shooting at a San Diego mosque, has filed a lawsuit alleging that the residential treatment facility where her son lived failed to act after the FBI warned that he was making concerning comments about school shootings on the dark web.

According to the complaint, filed Aug. 31 in a San Diego court, the FBI telephoned Vazquez’s mother on the evening of May 14 to report that her son was making concerning comments about school shootings on the dark web. The mother said she immediately left a message with Park Mental Health Treatment of San Diego to alert its staff, the lawsuit states.

Her notifications did not end there. On May 15, Vazquez’s mother shared the FBI’s warnings with her son’s therapist at the facility, and later that night she raised the warnings with a program director, according to the court filing.

The lawsuit alleges that the facility failed to intervene despite those notifications and despite signs that Vazquez, then 18, “posed an imminent threat to himself and others.” Vazquez had been living at Park Mental Health Treatment of San Diego and was receiving treatment there for a range of mental health conditions, including depression and psychotic episodes, the complaint says.

The shooting at the San Diego mosque came “just days” after the FBI call and the mother’s notifications to the facility, according to the lawsuit.

The mother’s attempts to communicate the FBI warnings unfolded over roughly 24 hours — a phone message to facility staff on the evening of May 14, a conversation with her son’s therapist on May 15, and another with a program director later that evening — all before the attack.

The filing follows a number of high-profile convictions of guardians who provided teenagers with weapons later used in mass shootings — a pattern referenced in the complaint’s framing of its claims against the facility.

The lawsuit does not name the second teenage shooter or specify the date of the attack, focusing instead on the facility’s alleged failures to act on the FBI warnings.