Not long before a 19-year-old North County nursing student opened fire in a Poway synagogue, a hate crime that killed a congregant and wounded three others, he espoused ideology that alarmed his classmates.
John T. Earnest shared white supremacist material with at least two of his Cal State San Marcos classmates, according to a newly obtained court filing. He studied Hitler. He had a copy of the manifesto of the man who shot up two New Zealand mosques in March 2019 — and he liked it.
Two fellow nursing students took their concerns about Earnest to a professor, who reported it up the chain at the university. An investigation followed, and university police were part of the team.