Teen girl who livestreamed San Diego mosque shooting faces murder charges, prosecutors say

A 17-year-old girl accused of livestreaming a deadly attack on a San Diego mosque is now facing murder charges.

The North Carolina teen was indicted Monday on three counts of murder and one count of conspiracy in the San Diego mosque shooting that killed three men, authorities said.

The girl, identified only as a high school student in Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools, is accused of livestreaming the attack in which two shooters — Caleb Vazquez, 18, and Cain Clark, 17 — opened fire at the Islamic Center of San Diego on May 18, Forsyth County Dist. Atty. Jim O’Neill announced at a news conference Monday. She is also accused of publishing the shooters’ manifesto in an effort to spread their credo of hate, and of failing to report the planned mosque attack to law enforcement.

The girl also knew that the shooters had intended to follow up their initial rampage by committing mass murders at a local Jewish temple and a predominantly Black high school the same day, O’Neill said. The additional shootings did not take place, as Vazquez and Clark took their own lives inside a car a few blocks away from the mosque.

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Though the girl was not physically present in California, O’Neill said that there is enough evidence to charge her with murder for aiding and abetting the attack as she shared the shooters’ criminal intent and was in a position to render aid during the crime. The girl was arrested last week and indicted by a grand jury Monday.

“The law in North Carolina is clear: A person may be guilty of a crime, although he or she personally does not do any of the acts necessary to constitute the crime,” he said. At 17 years old, she can be tried as an adult for her charges in North Carolina, he added.

Authorities were aware early on that three people watched a livestream of the attack, which was captured via GoPro cameras on helmets worn by the two shooters, he said. However, it took months to gather the evidence necessary to identify and prosecute the person allegedly responsible for disseminating it.

A coalition of local and federal law enforcement agencies conducted more than 100 interviews and 30 search warrants and reviewed more than 4 million messages as part of the investigation, according to Reid Davis, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Charlotte Field Office.

Authorities believe that the girl was radicalized in the same extremist online networks as Vazquez and Clark and communicated with them using the messaging platform Signal, O’Neill said.

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“[In] this underground subculture of hate, they listen to each other, they talk to each other in encoded platforms,” O’Neill said. “It radicalizes one another to the point where they carry out these horrific crimes of violence and murder.”

O’Neill said that the goal of publishing the livestream was to “memorialize the two terrorists,” and that it is important that the charges send a strong message that “what happened back in May of 2026 should not be something anybody should be watching or glorifying.”

He also urged parents to pay close attention to their children’s online activity, noting the ease with which teenagers can enter dark corners of the internet.

“You have to know what your kids are doing, who they’re talking to, what they’re getting into,” he said.

Davis said he hoped that Monday’s charges would serve as a reminder that anyone who becomes aware of plans for violence should report them immediately to law enforcement. He said he hoped the indictment would bring some sense of comfort to the victims in San Diego.

“To the families who lost loved ones, to the families who are at worship, and to the entire San Diego community,” he said, “you remain in our prayers.”

The three men killed in the attack were Amin Abdullah, Mansour Kaziha and Nadir Awad. Abdullah, a longtime security guard, was praised for his heroic actions confronting the shooters and giving others time to flee.