A member of the FBI dive team searches Seccombe Lake Friday, Dec. 11, 2015, in San Bernardino, Calif., for evidence in connection with last week’s fatal shooting at Inland Regional Center, The FBI says divers are searching the… At times, the divers picked up items from the lake and threw them back in after inspecting them.
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“Confidence in the government’s ability to keep them safe may not be as much a blaming of government ineptitude as it is a better understanding of the challenging nature of the threats now hiding within the U.S.”, Gallup said on its website.
David Bowdich, assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles field office, said investigators have conducted more than 400 interviews and collected about 320 pieces of evidence as they work to paint a picture of how the couple planned and carried out the attack, and they want to track down anyone who may have participated in the planning or profited from it. They were tipped that the small lake in a park about 3 miles from the terror attack might hold the hard drive, according to a law enforcement official briefed on the investigation but not authorized to speak publicly about the case. Authorities believe the marriage was faked in an attempt to help the woman stay in the U.S. Marquez told FBI investigators that he and Farook plotted a terror attack in 2012, but shelved the plans after four people were arrested and charged in a plot to commit jihad against U.S. military bases overseas, according to ABC News.
From Associated Press writer Tami Abdollah in Washington, D.C. At that location, several neighbors said they saw the residents moving large boxes and furniture out and into SUVs a week before the shootings.
Investigators have based that conclusion on evidence left behind on Farook and Malik’s computers and digital devices, not all of which the couple were able to destroy before they were killed in a firefight with police hours after their rampage, the sources said.
Marquez hasn’t been charged with a crime and has been cooperating with authorities.
As the San Bernardino attack was happening, investigators believe Malik posted on Facebook pledging allegiance to ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, three USA officials familiar with the investigation told CNN.
Farook was a five-year employee of the San Bernardino County public health agency, which was holding a holiday party when the shooting erupted.
He declined to discuss what specifically led investigators to conclude that the couple had radicalized independently as early as 2013, but suggested the information did not come from intercepts.
“We’re working very hard to understand exactly their association and the source of their inspiration”, FBI Director James B. Comey said, courtesy of the source.
“Everyone’s asking the same questions about how it is that law enforcement didn’t know, or intelligence officials didn’t know – that they could have flown under the radar and nothing gave an indication that they were a threat”, said Rep. Jim Langevin, a Rhode island Democrat and member of the House Homeland Security Committee.
Images of San Bernardino-area schools were found on a cellphone belonging to Farook, according to a law enforcement source.
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More than three years ago, Farook’s longtime friend and relative-through-marriage Enrique Marquez bought the assault rifles used in the shooting. But Farook was not among those investigated at the time, the officials said.
