A two-hour standoff as police tried to assess the threats before the San Diego shooters opened fire

SAN DIEGO – Two hours before Monday’s horrific incident at the San Diego Islamic Center, a string of calls from the mother of one of the attackers was recorded as police were working hard to assess the severity of the threat and try to track down the gunmen.

The mother of 17-year-old Cain Lee Clark first called police at 9:42 a.m., about two hours before the shooting was reported at the center. The police did not come to his house to talk to him until 11:10 in the morning, according to sources who were able to access the phone logs.

Meanwhile, the mother had called at least twice, with great concern, sources said. Those calls were enough for the police to raise the incident, more than an hour after the first call.

It’s unclear what the mother told police when she made the initial call, but police officials said she came in as an “excessive child,” and was described as a “Priority 2,” one of the two law enforcement sources said.

Many law enforcement officials said the wait time between the mother’s first call and the dispatch of a police officer was the same as for calls with the same pattern.

According to data recently released by the city in a public records request, the department’s average response time for Priority 2 was just over two hours in March. The San Diego Police Department has been dealing with staffing shortages, which came up as an issue earlier this month during budget talks.

The mother provided more information about her son in subsequent calls, sources said, prompting the police to escalate the case to the Priority 1 call.

A terrorist liaison was brought into the case at 10:54 a.m., sources said, sparking the frenzy of finding Clark. While the call was being made, a security car with two police officers was sent to the mother’s house. They arrived at 11:10 am, sources said.

At the time, one law enforcement source said, officials at Clark’s school were on alert and information from license plate readers was being checked for any sign of a stolen car. Police found two license plate numbers – both from before the incident, including one from the Fashion Valley shopping center about six miles from Clark’s home. The car was gone when the officer arrived, sources said.

According to audio recordings sent to San Diego police reviewed by The Times, dispatchers told officers at the scene at about 11:05 a.m. that they were looking for a “possible terrorist threat.” The dispatcher reported that a 17-year-old boy named Cain Clark left at 6:30 in the morning from his parents’ house with another teenager.

He removed the gun and additional guns from his parents’ gun safe, according to dispatch records. “He wrote a note on the computer that said ‘I’ve been gone too long and this is going to happen anyway,'” the dispatcher said. The young man drove off in a white BMW X1 and turned off his location on the phone, the recording said.

Clark was described as wearing a camo baseball cap, camo jacket, black pants and black boots. The second suspect was said to be wearing a green baseball cap, a camo jacket and green army camo pants.

Parents of students at Kavod Charter School are waiting to be reunited after the shooting at the Islamic Center in San Diego on Monday.

(KC Alfred / The San Diego Union-Tribune via Getty Images)

Police were speaking with Clark’s mother when the first reports of a shooting came in at the Islamic center at 11:42 am.

Clark and Caleb Liam Vazquez, 18, had driven to the mosque with plans to kill more people. They were briefly chased away by the guard, he and the other two who died in the parking lot, reported the attack to the center and the police, and saved their lives. The attackers were found dead with self-inflicted wounds.

San Diego police declined to add details to the timeline, saying investigators are still working it out.

“With such a thorough investigation, we want to ensure that the information shared remains reliable. We are working on our next update, which you can expect in the coming days. Thank you for your patience and understanding,” the department said in a statement to the Times. “As you can imagine, there are a lot of details that we are working on right now.”

It is not clear whether personnel issues played a role in the lawsuit. But the issue of police staffing and response times has been a debate in the city.

Jared Wilson, president of the San Diego Police Officers Assn., said in an emailed statement to The Times that his organization has been warning of staffing shortages, reduced overtime and response times.

Wilson declined to discuss specifics about the crew or specifics about Monday’s attack. He referred questions about the incident and staff to a spokesperson for the San Diego Police Department.

“Our staff monitoring levels are at historically low levels, which has resulted in very high response times,” Wilson said. “It is not uncommon for staffing levels to be 50% or worse below long-term lows. In addition to the devastating effects of high response times on the public, our officers are being put in dangerous situations with little backup and they are burning.”

Wilson said the department currently has 200 vacant positions, as well as 100 officers who are in training, or who are at the facility, and who are not available to work.

A San Diego police officer stands as part of a large security guard at a vigil for victims and families of a shooting at a mosque in San Diego, California, on May 19, 2026, the day after the attack.

(Zoe Meyers/AFP via Getty Images)

Police Department brass have admitted they are often below staffing levels, driven by a staffing shortage that has affected major agencies across the country. Both sources said the department’s northern division — where the mass shooting occurred — had seven officers assigned to the area at the time, below the department’s minimum of 14 personnel in that division. When the incident was elevated to Priority 1, other officers intervened.

In the 2027 budget plan released by the city this month, two priorities for the Police Department were hiring and retaining staff and improving response times.

But for years the city has faced budget deficits, which have led to cuts in spending by the Police Department. The budget for fiscal year 2027 focuses on cutting administrative positions, such as sergeants and supervisors, in an effort to “keep police officers in the field,” San Diego Police Chief Scott Wahl said in an interview with CBS 8 San Diego this month.

Wahl said the department is “hundred” short of its budget. But, he added, the department is “a thousand officers short of what we need to handle the volume of calls we have.”

A few days ago, police officials said their understanding of the threat posed by the youth came from information from the mother, who did not respond to requests for comment.

Wahl noted during several media briefings that law enforcement’s understanding of the threat that was occurring “raised as the mother began to piece together what she was finding,” but officials have never publicly discussed how many calls she made to the police or how long it took for the police to respond to the home.