More than a year before Caleb Vazquez and a friend attacked a mosque in San Diego and killed three people, the police were so alarmed by Mr. Vazquez’s behavior that they secured a court order to confiscate his father’s guns.
“Child was involved in suspicious behavior idolizing nazis and mass shooters,” a police officer wrote in a January 2025 protective order.
Mr. Vazquez, who was found dead on Monday shortly after the police say he and a friend attacked the Islamic Center of San Diego, had at some point been placed in an involuntary psychiatric hold, according to documents filed at San Diego Superior Court.
He must have been pretty dangerous to get an involuntary psychiatric hold. Before red flag laws, people that were thought to be dangerous to self or others would be subject to psychiatric observation. Taking away guns was not the goal. It was making them nit dangerous with all weapons: guns, gasoline, cars, knives, baseball bats. But red flag laws are gun-specific because they are not about public safety but gun confiscation.
One of the deranged teens behind the San Diego mosque shooting walked away from a mental health facility the day before carrying out Monday’s deadly attack, sources said.
Caleb Vazquez, 18, left the Park Mental Health Treatment Center the morning before killing three people at an Islamic center with 17-year-old Cain Clark, law enforcement sources told The Post.
What does "walked away" mean? He was apparently on a temporary psychiatric hold which could mean Welfare & Institutions section 5150 (72 hours for observation) or 5250 ("not more than 14 days of intensive treatment related to the mental health disorder or impairment by chronic alcoholism"). Neither of those something from which you "walk away." Both are part of the deeper problem of deinstitutionalization. As the psychiatrist who treated my brother during his first 5250 stay put it: "Anyone who still appears dangerous to a judge after 14 days of Thorazine, is pretty scary."
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