San Diego shooting: Confronting livestream footage shows moment teen gunmen allegedly opened fire at mosque

WARNING: Graphic video

Confronting footage of the moment two teenage gunmen allegedly stormed a mosque in San Diego and opened fire has emerged.

The video, which was livestreamed online by the two teenage males, appears to show the pair run into a building at the Islamic Center of San Diego on Monday morning armed with guns and clad in camouflage clothing displaying Nazi and white supremacist imagery.

When inside the building, the gunmen can be seen firing their weapons at a doorway before moving to another area of the mosque while loading their weapons.

The attack triggered a major emergency response as police swarmed the scene to escort children and adults from a school inside the mosque outside after receiving a call at 11.34am local time of reports of an active shooter in the area.

Earlier at 9.42am, the mother of one of the suspects alerted police that her son, who was suicidal, had gone missing with guns and her car.

Three people were killed in the deadly attack. The suspected shooters were found in dead in vehicle three blocks away from what police believe to be self-inflected gunshot wounds.

While San Diego police have not publicly named the suspects, two law enforcement officials identified the shooters as Cain Clark, 17, and Caleb Vazquez, 18, the New York Times reports.

Police are investigating the deadly shooting as a hate crime after investigators found anti-Islamic writings in the suspects’ car and hate messages on one of the weapons used in the attack.

“Because of the Islamic centre location, we are considering this a hate crime until it’s not,” San Diego Police Chief Scott Wahl told reporters.

“At this point, there was definitely hate rhetoric that was involved. I’ll leave it at that for now.”

Police and the FBI added that the two teenagers had been radicalised online and shared a hate-filled vision of the world.

They also obtained a written “manifesto” which is being analysed by investigators.

The writings, obtained by The Associated Press, include hateful rhetoric towards Jewish people, Muslims and Islam, as well as the LGBTQIA+ community, black people, women, and both the political left and right.

Police have since praised the “heroic” actions of a security guard who was killed in the deadly attack, saying he prevented far worse bloodshed.

According to Chief Wahl, the security guard exchanged fire with the two teenage attackers before using his radio to order the building to be locked down.

“Tragically, he died in that gun battle,” he said.

Two of the other people killed also tried to stop the attackers by drawing their attention away from the mosque and towards a car park.