Authorities said it was too soon to say whether the shooting was in some way linked to terrorism but did not rule it out.
Advertisement
Officials from Obama to San Bernardino Police Chief Jarrod Burguan said the attack may have been an act of terrorism but that a motive had not yet been determined.
The attackers invaded the Inland Regional Center about 60 miles east of Los Angeles around 11 a.m., opening fire in a conference area where county health officials were having an employee banquet, said Marybeth Feild, president and CEO of the nonprofit center.
“Clearly they were equipped and could have continued another attack”, Burguan said.
Farook attended the event before leaving – and returning to kill.
Co-worker Patrick Baccari said he was sitting at the same table as Farook, who suddenly disappeared.
“I was at the gym yesterday while the shooting was taking place and all the TVs were showing that footage and all I could keep thinking to myself is “God, I hope they don’t have any Eastern descent, not just Middle Eastern, anything we’d associate with a Muslim”, said Adam Hashem, 32, in Dearborn, a Detroit suburb with one of the country’s largest Muslim populations.
The Los Angeles Times reports that Farook met Malik on an online dating site, and they got to know each other in Saudi Arabia. He did not elaborate.
SueAnn Chapman, a cashier and waitress at China Doll Fast Food, a restaurant that Syed Farook had inspected earlier this year, said he did not seem unusual.
Two police officers were injured during the pursuit.
The couple, who dropped off their baby daughter with Farook’s mother shortly before the rampage, were dressed in black military-style gear and carried assault weapons and semi-automatic handguns as they burst into an auditorium rented out for the holiday party at Inland Regional Center.
“I have no idea why he would he do something like this”, Farook’s brother-in-law, Farhan Khan, told CNN.
San Bernardino police said they found pipe bombs and several thousands rounds of ammunition at the residence of the couple, who died in a shoot-out with police.
Officials had previously said neither Farook nor Malik were known to the Federal Bureau of Investigation or on a list of potentially radicalized people.
Television news helicopters captured the aftermath, as officers slowly approached the mangled SUV.
– On April 23, 2001, Cathline Repunte, 36, fatally shot one person at the Laidlaw Transit Services maintenance yard in San Jose, California. Then she received a call – her son had been named as a suspect.
The bomb squad found a suspicious package on the second floor of a building and determined it is “not normal”, the source said. “And that was it”.
Mr Bowditch confirmed both had recently been in Pakistan. “So I just don’t understand why somebody would come in and start shooting”.
Twenty-one people were wounded in the shooting, which ranks as the deadliest instance of USA gun violence in three years. Triage units were set up outside, and people were wheeled away on stretchers. According to data from anti-gun-violence organization Everytown, 88 people are killed by firearms each day in the United States. The Loma Linda hospital CEO, Kerry Heinrich, said two of the victims there were in critical condition.
Police are investigating the motive for the attack. One witness, Glenn Willwerth, who runs a business across the street, said he heard 10 to 15 shots and then saw an SUV with tinted windows pull out “very calmly, very slowly” and drive off. Public records show it may be the home of a Farook family member.
Investigators look at the vehicle involved in a shootout between police and two suspects in San Bernardino. The couple wore masks and body armour and placed three bombs at the scene, which police later detonated.
Reports that a third person seen fleeing the scene was involved were apparently unfounded: “We did ultimately determine that he was not involved in the incident”, Burguan clarified.
The suspects behind the shooting fired up to 75 rounds Wednesday and used an explosive device controlled by a remote control, Burguan said.
Advertisement
Muslim Americans fear their religion will be demonized and Islamophobia will spread after a young Muslim couple was accused of carrying out one of the bloodiest mass killings in the United States.
