The FBI says they are working to fill an 18-minute gap in the timeline of the mass shooting in San Bernardino last month.
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At a press conference, David Bowdich, the assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles office, said they have accounted for three hours and 42 minutes of the shooters’ time.
The feds say they need the public’s help to identify the Jihadi duo’s actions during an 18-minute span after Tashfeen Malik and Syed Farook opened fire and before the pair died during a auto chase with police.
While he declined to speculate if whatever happened during the timeline gap could still present a danger to the public, “until we close that gap, we just don’t know for sure”.
Bowdich said investigators were specifically interested in obtaining any photographic or other electronic evidence that could pinpoint their locations during the brief window of time shortly before their trail was picked up by authorities, prompting a pursuit that ended in the couple’s death later that afternoon.
While it is unclear why Farook and Malik were driving back and forth, mostly on interstates, Bowdich said there is no evidence there were secondary targets, though that has not been ruled out. The rest of their movements through the adjacent cities of San Bernardino and Redlands in a rented black Ford Expedition have been tracked, he said.
He also added that while the assault, the deadliest terror attack in the United States since September 11, 2001, was apparently inspired by foreign terrorist networks, there was no indication of a direct link to a specific group.
The request for assistance comes a day before a friend of Farook’s accused of providing the guns used in the massacre is scheduled to be arraigned in a federal court in nearby Riverside.
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This story has been corrected to the spelling of Bowdich in the 5th paragraph.
