3 killed in shooting at San Diego’s largest mosque

Two teenage shooters opened fire at a San Diego mosque on Monday, killing three men in an attack police are investigating as a hate crime. The two shooters later died a few blocks away from the mosque due to self-inflicted gunshot wounds.

There was no specific threat made against the Islamic Center of San Diego but authorities found evidence that the suspects engaged in “generalised hate rhetoric," San Diego Police Chief Scott Wahl said.

He declined to give more details, but said the “circumstances that led up to this” would come out in the days to come.

Before the attack, officers were already looking for one of the teenagers since his mother called police concerned that her son was suicidal and had run away, police said. There were weapons missing from the home and the mother's vehicle was gone.

The search took on even more urgency as police learned that he was dressed in camouflage and with an acquaintance — details that were unexpected for someone about to die by suicide, he said.

Police began using whatever technology they could to find the 17- and 18-year-old, including automated license plate readers. The department dispatched authorities to a mall near where the car had been tracked by police, and officers alerted a school where at least one of the suspects had been a student, Wahl said.