In my previous post about the Islamic Center of San Diego shooting, I talked about how this case seemed different from the usual school shooter story.
Early reporting made it sound like Caleb Vazquez’s parents recognized there was a serious problem and were doing everything they could to stop their son from spiraling further into violent extremism. Court documents suggested they removed guns from the home, monitored his online activity, coordinated with school officials, and tried to get him treatment before anyone ended up dead.
Now it looks like that may not have been the full story.
New reporting from KGTV in San Diego paints a much messier picture, especially when it comes to Vazquez’s father.
According to court documents, when police showed up to conduct a welfare check on Vazquez last year, his father reportedly refused to let officers speak to his son alone and would not allow police to verify that the guns in the home were secured properly. That’s not exactly the behavior of somebody fully cooperating with concerns that his son was idolizing mass shooters.
Instead, it sounds more like a father running interference for a deeply troubled kid while hoping the whole thing would somehow blow over on its own.
And, of course, this story just keeps getting worse the more details come out. Investigators say Vazquez had become obsessed with notorious mass killers and even started dressing like them at school.
Court documents reportedly say he dressed up as various mass shooters and killers, including the alleged UnitedHealthcare CEO shooter Luigi Mangione and even the vigilante serial killer Dexter from the TV series.
Sadly, none of this is remotely new. School shooters have been treating mass murder like fandom culture for decades now. Ever since Columbine, there has been a long line of disturbed kids dressing like Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, mimicking their clothing, quoting them online, idolizing them, and treating them like antiheroes instead of what they actually were: pathetic murderers who destroyed innocent lives because they wanted attention and revenge against a world they believed had wronged them.
That kind of obsession should never be dismissed as edgy humor or teenage experimentation anymore. It is one of the clearest warning signs we keep seeing over and over again. When somebody starts turning mass killers into role models and costumes, they are no longer just consuming violent content. They are building their entire identity around it.
The reporting also says Vazquez became fixated on World War II and Adolf Hitler, even allegedly telling authorities he believed Hitler had ‘redeeming qualities.’ Whenever these kids start developing a sudden fascination with World War II, everybody already knows which part of the war they are interested in.
I seriously doubt Caleb Vazquez was spending hours researching the Pacific Theater or studying naval logistics in the Battle of Midway. Chances are he was a lot more interested in the troops marching around Europe draped in Hugo Boss uniforms while waving swastika banners.
Once again, this is another recurring pattern with mass shooters and extremist online culture. A lot of these kids latch onto Nazi aesthetics because they confuse cruelty with strength and intimidation with power. The internet has turned historical atrocities into memes, aesthetics, and other material for angry young white men desperate to feel important.
Then there is the detail about Vazquez claiming he was being bullied by a transgender student who apparently did not even exist. School officials reportedly told police there were no students by the names Vazquez provided attending the campus at all.
These online extremist spaces constantly encourage users to reinterpret their lives through imagined persecution narratives. The trans community has developed such a fearsome reputation for violently oppressing straight teenage boys that apparently some of these kids do not even need an actual transgender person in their lives anymore. They can just invent one and build the grievance anyway.
Modern shooter culture leans heavily into perceived humiliations and imaginary enemies because a lot of these kids desperately want an explanation for why they feel angry and miserable all the time. You know, outside of the fact that they never feel responsible for their own inadequacies.
At the center of all this is still Caleb Vazquez’s father, who initially came across in earlier reporting as a concerned parent trying desperately to stop a tragedy. Now he sounds a lot more like one of those fathers who refuses to fully accept that his son needed serious psychiatric intervention in the first place. The kind of guy who thinks therapy is weakness, mental healthcare is an overreaction, and law enforcement should stop asking questions about his troubled son’s growing obsession with mass murderers and Nazis.
Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe he truly believed he could handle the situation privately, and things just spiraled beyond anybody’s control. That can happen. Parents are human too, but denial is a powerful thing when the person you are terrified of losing is your own child.
Still, when police are showing up because your son is idolizing mass shooters, dressing like killers at school, and allegedly praising Hitler, the appropriate response is probably not obstructing officers from assessing the situation fully.
At this point, I almost wonder if he bought his son a gun for Christmas too.
(Source)
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