More than one week later, authorities are still digging to make sense of the San Bernardino massacre, piecing together the clues they’ve compiled so far and trying to discover more, including by investigating the shooters’ electronic trail and searching a lake near where the carnage occurred.
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California Democrats are aggressively calling for gun control measures in the wake of the shootings, and they demanded Thursday that a lifting of the ban on research into gun violence be included in a spending bill needed to keep the government from shutting down after Friday.
Enrique Marquez, the man who authorities say legally purchased the two assault rifles used in the San Bernardino shootings, worked at Morgan’s Tavern in Riverside and the Walmart at 479 North McKinley St.in Corona.
Among the materials Johnson requested are any communications unearthed by investigators pointing to the couple’s plans for the massacre, how they concealed their intentions from law enforcement and any other attacks they might have contemplated.
Officials also said employees would benefit from added security and access to counseling.
The couple Wednesday past year. He said these people saw activity around the garage that they thought was suspicious.
Images of San Bernardino-area schools were found on a cellphone belonging to Farook, according to a law enforcement source.
Marquez purchased high-powered weapons at least three years ago that Farook and his wife fired when they burst into a holiday-themed meeting of Farook’s fellow health inspectors December 2, killing 14 people and wounding 21 others.
FBI Director James Comey and other senior American officials on Thursday briefed members of Congress, who were curious to know whether any red flags may have been missed in the last two years. Farook was a practicing Muslim.
Azmi Hasan said Wednesday that he understood Marquez had converted to Islam, but said he was not a member of that mosque.
The reports of a possible third shooter grabbed the imagination of some in the public, and Twitter posts, Facebook memes and YouTube videos began to circulate in the days after, suggesting either that law enforcement had let another terrorist slip away in San Bernardino or some sort of conspiracy was keeping the whole truth from the public.
The FBI believes Farook had ties to a group of jihadists in California who were arrested in 2012 for attempting to travel to Afghanistan to join al Qaeda.
During a press conference held on Monday, David Bowdich, assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles field office, said that both Farook and Malik “were radicalized and have been for quite some time”. “We watched them for months and months”, he said.
“It would be great to be able to account for everybody at the scene, but I don’t assume that person is part of the terrorism group, and I don’t think that people should: I think that’s a myopic way of looking at the case”, she said.
The source said it remains unclear whether Marquez had any involvement in the planning of the shooting or had any prior knowledge that an attack was pending.
Tommy Lopez, who said he became friends with Marquez after meeting at a punk rock show seven months ago, said he never talked about his wife and was not religious.
CNN has reported that Farook knew Sohiel Omar Kabir, the Afghan-born, naturalized American ringleader of the 2012 plot who was convicted past year. Former neighbour Enrique Marquez bought the two rifles used in the attack. “It’s what I could read in The New York Times this morning, or McClatchy”. “It was a pleasure”. Second big question is, who else were they in touch with. Agents are concerned that Marquez’s mental and emotional state may affect what he has been telling interrogators, the source said.
Several lawmakers said they didn’t learn anything from the briefing that wasn’t already being reported in the news media.
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“The reason it’s changed now is because it’s in our neighborhood”, she said.
