A 75-page manifesto linked to 17-year-old Cain Clark and 19-year-old Caleb Vasquez, the two suspects in the Islamic Center of San Diego shooting, has answered the question everyone was asking: why? The document, now in the hands of law enforcement, paints a detailed and deeply disturbing picture of the two young men.
Law enforcement connected the manifesto to the pair through online profiles on Steam and Venmo, both of which displayed the same fascist imagery, language, and symbolism that appear throughout the document.
The manifesto, obtained by the California Post, is steeped in neo-Nazi symbolism — the same Black Sun and Atomwaffen insignia Clark wore during the livestreamed attack — and it brims with racial hatred toward Muslims, Jews, gay people, and other groups, framing them not as neighbors but as invaders and enemies. Physical evidence recovered at the scene drives the point home: a fuel can marked with the Nazi SS symbol, firearms etched with hateful messages, and the Black Sun imagery visible during the livestream.
However, the ideology is somewhat ambiguous.
Both killers wrote sections under their own names. Vasquez opens with an "About Me" section in which he distances himself from conventional politics, writing that he is "certainly not left wing, nor am I right wing — especially not with MAGA or Trump." He positions himself as a "Third Positionist,” which is a fringe ideology rooted in National Socialism and eco-fascism.
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On religion, he's equally direct: "What was I religiously? It doesn't really matter at the end of the day. As a friend once said, my religion is the white race."
He describes the 2019 New Zealand Christchurch mosque shooter, Brenton Tarrant, as the blueprint for a successful livestreamed attack.
Both shooters mention livestreaming the attack using a GoPro. Vazquez asked people to “Spread our message,” by sharing the livestream while Clark simply said “Try to get the latest version you can if you plan to stream your attack,” under his “Obtaining/Making Gear” section.
The memo also details his beliefs and contains derogatory and racist views targeting a number of groups — including Muslims, Jews, and gay people, among others.
“Let me preface this by saying I don’t hate Muslims, at least not really. What I do hate is the religion of Islam itself and what I hate more than that is seeing them here, invading my country,” Vasquez said.
Another section titled “Death to the World,” with the subheading “By Cain Clark,” includes a long list of subsections explaining his views on “Muslims,” “the Jewish question,” and “the beauty of war.”
Clark describes himself as “the average white man wanting to do the right thing,” while Vasquez wrote, “Being short, especially now more than ever, is nothing short of a torturous humiliation ritual.”
Clark says he felt no remorse and planned to die. A still from the livestream shows him in a car, armed, moments before he shot Vasquez and then himself. He wrote that he never intended to survive.
Both men openly idolized Brenton Tarrant, the Christchurch mosque shooter, treating him as a template for a successful livestreamed mass killing. The manifesto is named after him. Vasquez urged followers to "Spread our message" by sharing the footage. Clark, in a section on gear acquisition, advised others to "Try to get the latest version you can if you plan to stream your attack."
As for the social media rumors that Clark and Vasquez were a transgender couple, those claims remain unconfirmed and likely unfounded.
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