Two suspects, a man and a woman armed with assault rifles and handguns, were killed in a shootout with police hours after the attack, police said.
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A third person near the gun battle was detained, but police said it was unclear if that person had anything to do with the shooting.
The attack took place in a conference area where the San Bernardino County Department of Public Health was holding a social event, said Maybeth Field, the centre’s president.
Farook abruptly left the center before the shooting “under circumstances described as angry”, said San Bernardino Police Chief Jarrod Burguan.
Three explosive devices were planted around the scene of the shooting.
The state-run facility offers services for children and adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities including autism spectrum disorder, Down syndrome, cerebral palsy and other conditions. “She gets all the services she possibly could for these kids”.
“I just can not express how sad I am for what happened today”.
“It still is an active fluid situation”, she said, adding police were still trying to clear the complex. Some texted their loved ones or telephoned them and whispered to them what was going on. He said she wrote: “People shot”.
“There was some type of dispute or something when somebody left the party, but we have no idea if those are the people that came back”, Burguan said.
(KNBC via AP). First responders attend to people outside a Southern California social services center in San Bernardino, where one or more gunmen opened fire, shooting multiple people on Wednesday, Dec. 2, 2015.
“He was very quiet”, Reisinger, who worked for 11 years as an environmental inspector, said. Police cautioned that the numbers of dead and wounded were early estimates that could change.
As he recounted his wife’s story, Rudy Peralta said he had just heard on the radio that the suspects were in a standoff with authorities.
San Bernardino, a city of some 214,000 people, is about 100 kilometers east of Los Angeles.
Hundreds of people with their hands raised were seen being evacuated from the social services building. The bomb squad was working to determine whether they need to blow up two suspicious devices, one of which appeared to be a pipe bomb. An eye-witness said the attackers fired for about 30 seconds before calmly reloading and opening fire again.
Officials have yet to publicly identify any suspects. The SUV crashed, and a gunbattle broke out around 3 p.m.
President Barack Obama has been briefed on the shootings by Homeland Security advisor Lisa Monaco, according to a White House official.
Based upon what police have seen and how the shooter were were equipped, Barguan stressed that planning went into the attack. He told CBS that stricter gun laws, including stronger background checks, would make the country safer.
Pressed on the motive for the shooting, in which 14 were killed and 17 were wounded, Barguan said, “Until we know the motive…”
The shooting sounded like “an organized plot”, and preliminary information seems to indicate that “this is personal, and there seems to suggest some element of revenge and retaliation”, said Erroll G. Southers, director of Homegrown Violent Extremism Studies at the University of Southern California and a former Federal Bureau of Investigation agent.
“I would say hi and bye”.
He wouldn’t say if he knew if they were related.
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Marcos Aguilera told CNN affiliate KABC-TV that his wife had just made it out of the building. Staff members from that department had gathered on Wednesday for the party where the shooters opened fire.
