A lawsuit filed in San Diego court alleges that Park Mental Health Treatment facility failed to act on federal warnings about a teenager who later participated in a mass shooting at a local mosque. The mother of Caleb Vazquez, 18, states that the FBI contacted her on the evening of May 14 to alert her about concerning comments her son had made regarding school shootings on the dark web. She said she immediately notified the treatment center where her son was receiving care for depression and psychotic episodes.
Vazquez’s mother reported sharing the FBI’s warnings with her son’s therapist on May 15 and with a program director that same evening. On the morning of May 18, facility staff contacted her to report that Vazquez was missing from the premises. Surveillance footage later showed he had left the facility at 8 p.m. the previous night. That morning, Vazquez and another teenager, identified as Cain Clark, 17, carried out a shooting at a San Diego mosque that resulted in three deaths before both attackers took their own lives.
The lawsuit questions whether the facility adequately responded to documented warning signs. Vazquez had been hospitalized for three days earlier in the year after expressing intentions to carry out a school shooting to a classmate. Additionally, authorities had previously flagged him for alarming behavior and removed 26 firearms from his father’s possession under California law. Park Mental Health disputed the lawsuit’s claims, stating that neither the facility nor its employees bear responsibility for the attackers’ actions.
The case follows several high-profile convictions of individuals who provided weapons to teenagers subsequently involved in mass shootings. Authorities have indicated the two shooters met online and became radicalized there, though law enforcement has not disclosed additional details about their relationship or which weapons were used in the attack.
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