Tell her call the cops. It doesn't even matter if they aren't in LA.
In San Diego, two young men who found each other in the darkest corners of the internet carried out a religiously motivated attack on a mosque while strangers watched through their phones in real time — some perhaps across the world. The event mirrors a pattern first made infamous in Christchurch in 2019: violence staged as content, hatred rehearsed as community, and death distributed as spectacle. It raises an ancient question in a new form — what is the moral weight of witnessing, and what does a society owe to those it fails to protect from the ideologies it allows to flourish?
- Two teenage gunmen, radicalized through fringe online spaces, attacked the Islamic Center of San Diego on a Monday afternoon — killing one person before turning their weapons on each other.
- The attack was livestreamed in real time to at least three remote viewers connected through Signal and Discord, one of whom urged the others to call police — but the message arrived five minutes too late.
- Digital traces suggest the viewers were scattered internationally, with one device showing signs of being in Albania, underscoring how violence can now be witnessed — and enabled — across borders without a single shared physical space.
- The shooters explicitly identified with the Christchurch attacker, shared a manifesto saturated with hate, and circulated their footage to gore sites that celebrate mass shooters — completing a cycle of inspiration, documentation, and glorification.
- Experts and civil society groups are now pressing platforms to reckon with the extremist subcultures they host, as the recurring pattern of livestreamed religious violence tests the limits of free speech protections and platform accountability.
On a Monday afternoon in San Diego, at least three people watched through their phones as gunmen opened fire inside the Islamic Center. They were connected through encrypted apps and gaming platforms — possibly from different countries — witnessing the violence in real time as it unfolded.
One of the attackers had set up a Signal video call with a user called "Noelle" before the shooting began. Noelle stayed on the call for roughly twenty minutes, then relayed the feed to a Discord user named "Otto," who began recording it on his own device. When Otto messaged a third person — writing simply "DUDE LOOK" and confirming the shooters were "IN SOME MOSUQE" — that person immediately urged action: "Tell her call the cops." But when Otto replied five minutes later, it was already over. Seventeen-year-old Cain Clark had shot eighteen-year-old Caleb Vazquez before taking his own life. The final sequence was also captured on video.
The digital geography of the witnesses remains uncertain. Otto's device showed signs of being in Albania; Noelle's appeared set to Eastern time. CBS News could not confirm where any of them were located, but the traces suggest the attack was watched from outside California — possibly outside the United States entirely.
The two shooters had met through fringe online communities, discovered they were both in the San Diego area, and arranged to meet in person. They co-authored a manifesto dense with antisemitic, anti-Muslim, misogynistic, and anti-LGBTQ rhetoric, and explicitly identified themselves as ideological heirs to the perpetrator of the 2019 Christchurch mosque massacre — which was also livestreamed. After the attack, their footage spread across gore websites that have become gathering places for mass shooter admirers.
Discord said it preserved relevant information and turned it over to law enforcement, while noting the livestream did not originate on its platform. Signal declined to comment. Counter-extremism experts warn that the San Diego attack reflects a deepening subculture in which attackers prepare their streams and manifestos alongside their weapons — and that platforms enabling these communities to exist bear a responsibility that existing legal frameworks have yet to fully address.
On a Monday afternoon, as gunmen opened fire inside the Islamic Center of San Diego, at least three people were watching in real time through their phones. They were scattered across the internet—possibly across the world—connected through encrypted messaging apps and gaming platforms, witnessing the violence unfold on their screens as it happened.
The attackers had set up a Signal video call with someone using the handle "Noelle" before they began shooting. Noelle stayed on that call for roughly twenty minutes before the gunfire started, then positioned a second phone to relay the live feed to another viewer on Discord, a user named "Otto." Otto began recording the Signal call on his own device, creating a second-order documentation of the attack. As the shooting unfolded, Otto messaged a third person on Discord, writing simply: "DUDE LOOK." When asked where the gunmen were, Otto responded: "IN SOME MOSUQE." That third person immediately grasped what was happening and urged action. "Tell her call the cops," they wrote, referring to Noelle. "Bro, tell her call the cops. It doesn't even matter if they aren't in LA just tell her to call them and they can hopefully find out where he is." But by the time Otto replied five minutes later, the attack was over. One of the shooters, seventeen-year-old Cain Clark, had killed the other, eighteen-year-old Caleb Vazquez, before taking his own life. That final sequence was also captured on video.
The geography of this remote witnessing remains murky. Otto's device showed signs of being in Albania—a Vodafone AL carrier identifier and a time zone matching local Albanian hours. Noelle's device appeared set to Eastern time, three hours ahead of San Diego. CBS News could not independently confirm where any of the viewers were located, but the digital traces suggest at least some of them watched from outside California, possibly outside the country.
According to researchers who examined the shooters' online activity, Noelle appeared to be in some kind of relationship with one of the attackers. Both gunmen had been active in fringe communities on mainstream social media platforms before they met online, discovered they were both in the San Diego area, and arranged to meet in person. They shared a manifesto filled with antisemitic, anti-Muslim, misogynistic, anti-Hispanic, anti-gay, and anti-trans rhetoric. The document opened with an antisemitic rant repeating the phrase "IT'S THE JEWS." The shooters referred to themselves as the "sons" of the perpetrator of the 2019 Christchurch mosque attack, which killed fifty-one people and was also livestreamed.
After the attack, the video circulated online across so-called gore websites that have become gathering places for admirers of mass shooters. Discord, the platform where Otto had been messaging, said it had preserved information related to the attack and turned it over to law enforcement. A Discord spokesperson stated the company found no evidence the livestream originated on their platform, though they acknowledged the attack had unfolded across their service. Signal declined to comment.
Experts tracking online extremism say the San Diego attack represents a troubling pattern. Oren Segal, senior vice president of counter-extremism at the Anti-Defamation League, described a growing subculture in which attackers prepare their streams and manifestos alongside their weapons. "The attack in San Diego is another deadly reminder that any threat assessment in this country has to account for the increasing violence that we're seeing and the online platforms that really enable this to exist," Segal said. He noted that while free speech protections are broad in America, the recurring pattern of violence against religious institutions and schools, all connected by a through line of websites that normalize such attacks, raises urgent questions about whether stronger legal action against those platforms is necessary. The question now is whether anyone—Noelle, Otto, the person who urged them to call police—actually did alert authorities, and if so, whether it mattered. The timeline suggests it did not.
Notable Quotes
The attack in San Diego is another deadly reminder that any threat assessment in this country has to account for the increasing violence that we're seeing and the online platforms that really enable this to exist.— Oren Segal, Anti-Defamation League
Discord strongly condemns violence and we have strict policies against anyone who supports, promotes, or engages in violent acts.— Discord spokesperson
The Hearth Conversation Another angle on the story
So three people were watching this happen live. How is that even possible? How do you end up in a position to see something like that as it unfolds?
They were connected through encrypted apps and Discord—Signal, which is encrypted messaging, and Discord, which is a gaming and community platform. The shooters had set up a call with someone named Noelle, and Noelle essentially relayed that to another person named Otto by positioning a phone camera at their screen. It's a chain of remote witnessing.
And someone actually told them to call the police?
Yes. A third person on Discord saw what Otto was sharing and immediately understood the gravity. They wrote "Tell her call the cops" twice, even clarifying that it didn't matter if the location was wrong, just to call. But by the time Otto responded, the attack was already over.
Where were these people actually located?
That's the unsettling part. The evidence suggests they weren't in California. Otto's phone showed Albanian carrier information and Albanian time. Noelle's device was set to Eastern time. So you had people potentially in different countries watching a mass shooting in San Diego in real time.
Why would someone be in an online relationship with one of the shooters?
Researchers found that both gunmen were active in fringe online communities before they met. They discovered each other online, realized they were both in San Diego, and met in person. Noelle appears to have been connected to one of them through those communities. It's part of how these attacks get enabled—through networks of people who share extremist ideology.
And the video spread after the attack?
Yes. It circulated on gore websites that function as gathering places for people who admire mass shooters. The attackers had modeled themselves on the 2019 Christchurch shooter, who also livestreamed. They even called themselves the "sons" of that attacker. So there's a lineage here, a subculture that documents and celebrates this violence.
What's the platform responsibility in all this?
That's the open question. Discord says the livestream didn't originate on their platform, but the coordination clearly happened there. Signal is encrypted so they may not even know. The platforms are caught between their design—which enables real-time communication—and the reality that those tools are being used to coordinate and document mass violence.