Who is John Earnest, the suspect in the Poway synagogue shooting?

The 19-year-old suspect in Saturday’s Poway synagogue shooting, John T. Earnest, is the product of a seemingly tight-knit family with strong ties to the San Diego community, although online postings suggest a preoccupation with advancing a revolution to preserve the European race.

Earnest, who is in custody, is accused of killing one woman and wounding three other people in a shooting during Passover services at the Chabad of Poway.

His actions appear to have been revealed in an open letter, published on the Internet forum 8chan and attributed to him. The forum is a photo-based website where people can create and moderate their own boards. Because of its limited rules, it is sometimes used anonymously by members of the far-right, white nationalist movement.

The missive is riddled with strong language, hate speech and anti-Semitic epithets. In it, the author paints himself as a martyr for white people and writes that he hates “anyone who seeks the destruction of my race.” He also claims to have previously set fire to an Escondido mosque, and that he did so in support of accused New Zealand Christchurch shooter Brenton Tarrant. Tarrant, he says, was the catalyst for his actions.

“I am a testament to the fact that literally anyone can do this,” he wrote. “If you told me even 6 months ago that I would do this I would have been surprised.”

Earnest, a Rancho Penasquitos resident, is enrolled at Cal State University, San Marcos. President Karen Haynes confirmed his attendance and said in a statement that the state school is cooperating with authorities. The online poster claims to be “doing well” in nursing school and describes himself as, “just a normal dude who wanted to have a family, help and heal people, and play piano.” Earnest previously attended Mt. Carmel High School, where his father taught.

In the open letter, the author quotes several scriptures from the Bible’s New Testament to justify his beliefs.

“My God understands why I did what I did,” he wrote in the self-described manifesto.

He also said he would stream the shooting live on Facebook, although a spokesperson for the social media company said the company had found no evidence of any video related to the incident. The company disabled the Facebook account linked to in the letter because it was deemed to be a fake account, the person said.

Sheriff Bill Gore said there was no record that Earnest had prior interaction with law enforcement.

The tenor of the online posting contrasted with Joyce Daubert’s encounters with the Earnest family. Daubert, a Ramona resident, is a retired schoolteacher who taught alongside Earnest’s father at Mt. Carmel. The father, who also has a long history of serving as a lifeguard in La Jolla, is a physics and science teacher at Mt. Carmel. Daubert said she was stupefied and heartbroken by the son’s suspected involvement.

“I don’t have enough words to say how lovely (the family is),” she said in a phone interview Saturday afternoon. Daubert only met the younger Earnest at faculty gatherings but described him as “charming, really impressive, and so sweet and nice.”

Staff graphic artist Michelle Guerrero contributed to this story.