The Times said that the deeply religious Farook had traveled to Saudi Arabia for about a month this past spring and came back to the U.S. with a wife that he had met online.
Like the devout Muslims who opened fire on the Jewish day school in France, the jihad couple also had GoPro cameras strapped to their body armor and wore tactical clothing, including vests stuffed with ammunition magazines.
San Bernardino Police Chief Jarrod Burguan identified the suspects as Syed Rizwan Farook, 28, and Tashfeen Malik, 27. Burguan said that Farook was born in the U.S. and worked at the San Bernardino County Department of Public Health. Family members told the Associated Press the pair were married.
Patrick Baccari, a co-worker of Farook who suffered minor wounds from shrapnel slicing through the building’s bathroom walls, told the Associated Press he been sitting at the same table as Farook at the banquet Wednesday morning, but his co-worker suddenly disappeared, leaving his coat on his chair. Baccari also said that Farook had traveled to Saudi Arabia for about a month this past spring.
When he came back, word got around Farook had been married, Baccari said, and the woman he described as a pharmacist joined him shortly afterward. The couple had a baby later this year. Baccari added that the reserved Farook showed no signs of unusual behavior, although he grew out his beard several months ago.
FOX: Law enforcement officials said they could not rule out terrorism as a possible motive. The FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force was aiding in the investigation. A law enforcement source told Fox News that the couple were carrying AR-15 rifles and pistols when they were shot and killed by police after a brief chase in their black SUV Wednesday afternoon. The source said the vehicle also contained so-called “rollout bags” with multiple pipe bombs. The couple also had GoPro cameras strapped to their body armor and wore tactical clothing, including vests stuffed with ammunition magazines.
The source told Fox News the couple were using “military tactics” and were “prepared for a sustained fight.”
WSJ: Mr. Farook, a U.S. citizen, traveled to Saudi Arabia last year, according to government records. Authorities don’t automatically attach any importance to that trip, but they are investigating his background, the officials said.
David Bowdich, assistant director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Los Angeles office, said terrorism “is a possibility, but we don’t know that yet, and we’re not willing to go down that road yet.”
Mr. Farook’s brother in law, Farhan Khan, said during a news conference held by Muslim leaders in Orange County, Calif. Wednesday evening that he was shocked by Mr. Farook’s alleged actions.
“I cannot express how sad I am about what happened,” said Mr. Khan, who is married to Mr. Farook’s sister, adding, “I am in shock that something like this could happen.”
He spoke in a barely-audible voice and appeared stunned. He declined to provide additional details about Mr. Farook.
Islamic leaders at the press conference, held at the Greater Los Angeles Area office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, denounced the attack.
“The Muslim community stands shoulder to shoulder with our fellow Americans in repudiating any twisted mindset that would claim to justify such sickening acts of violence,” said CAIR-LA Executive Director Hussam Ayloush.
Grizelda Reisinger said she had worked with Mr. Farook as a health department field inspector. “He was very under the radar,” she recalled. “He didn’t really talk to anybody.”
The shooting erupted in a conference room of the Inland Regional Center, according to Marybeth Feild, president of the center’s board. The facility provides services to more than 30,000 developmentally disabled people and their families, according to its Facebook page.
By nightfall, the 17 people wounded during the shooting were at local hospitals and police had lifted a neighborhood lockdown after a long, terrifying day. The suspects’ gun battle with police broke out about five hours after the mass shooting, back in San Bernardino on a residential street 2 miles from the initial crime scene.
Police and federal agents in San Bernardino, the Southern California city where the violence occurred around 11 a.m., said the motive for the attack was still unknown.
There were reports that someone may have left the holiday party in anger, then possibly returned, police said. “Somebody did leave but we have no idea if that is the person who came back. There was some type of dispute or something,” Mr. Burguan said.
Based on witness statements, law-enforcement officials suspect one of the perpetrators was at the event, got into an argument, and then returned with at least one other person.
The suspects burst in wearing masks and firing rifles. At least one witness believed they recognized one of the shooters from the earlier confrontation, according to an official close to the probe.
Later in the day, live television coverage showed three armored law-enforcement vehicles surrounding a dark SUV riddled with bullet holes and with the back window shattered.
A police officer also suffered non-life-threatening injuries during the shootout, officials said. Authorities didn’t release information on the suspects’ ages, and said they didn’t know their relationship.
In the evening, federal agents entered a house in Redlands, 7 miles away, where the suspects were believed to have retreated after the shooting. Police tracked them there on a tip, then pursued them when they left the house, engaging them in a shootout on the street.
Law-enforcement officials said they were just starting what would be a long investigation, and were searching for others who may have been involved in planning the attack.
Loma Linda University Medical Center, where some of the injured were taken, was searched after a bomb threat following the shooting, officials said. Five adults were hospitalized with injuries, two were in critical condition, a hospital spokeswoman said.
Meanwhile, families who had gathered at a meeting place to be reunited with loved ones were told to take cover after reports of shots being fired. County and city buildings, as well as hospitals and schools were locked down, and employees were told to shelter in place for hours—an eerie echo of a mass shooting that had unfolded days earlier in Colorado Springs.
The incident launched a massive manhunt in this city of about 212,000 people roughly 60 miles east of Los Angeles and across Southern California. Authorities combed the building where the initial shooting occurred and found at least one device that appeared to be an explosive, police said.
California Shooting: San Bernardino on Lockdown
At least 14 people were killed after as many as three gunmen stormed a holiday event, authorities said.
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The Inland Regional Center complex following the shooting. Mario Anzuoni/Reuters
A couple embraced after at least 14 people were killed Wednesday in a shooting at Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino, Calif., a facility …
Employees and bystanders are evacuated by bus from the site of the mass shooting. David McNew/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
Police vehicles crowd a street during a manhunt following the mass shooting in San Bernardino. Mario Anzuoni/Reuters
Police vehicles line the street around a vehicle in which two suspects were shot following a mass shooting in San Bernardino. Mike Blake/Reuters
Evacuees from the scene of a shooting at the Inland Regional Center wait inside the Rudy C Hernandez Community Center in San Bernardino. Mike Nelson/European Pressphoto Agency
Media and bystanders watch from behind a police barricade near where a shootout between police and gunmen occurred. Stuart Palley for The Wall Street Journal
A police officer keeps watch in a neighborhood in San Bernardino. Mike Blake/Reuters
A survivor of the mass shooting at the Inland Regional Center meets family after being interviewed by police. Yang Lei/Xinhua/ZUMA Press
An SUV seen from the air was the suspected getaway vehicle from the scene of the shooting. Mario Anzuoni/Reuters
A SWAT vehicle carries police officers near the scene of the shooting. Micah Escamilla/Los Angeles News Group/Associated Press
Police officers secure the area at the Inland Regional Center. Mario Anzuoni/Reuters
San Bernardino Police Chief Jarrod Burguan speaks to the media near the site of the mass shooting. “They came prepared to do what they did, as if they were on a mission,” he said. Chris Carlson/Associated Press
California Highway Patrol officers gather near the location of the mass shooting. Stuart Palley for The Wall Street Journal
The Inland Regional Center complex following the shooting. Mario Anzuoni/Reuters
A couple embraced after at least 14 people were killed Wednesday in a shooting at Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino, Calif., a facility for people with developmental disabilities. David Bauman/Press-Enterprise/ZUMA Press
The room at the Inland Regional Center where the gunfire broke out was being rented Wednesday by the county health department for the holiday event, Ms. Feild said. The building—part of the center’s three-building campus—is accessible to the public, she noted. In addition to the conference area, it has a library, coffee shop and offices.
“I’m very saddened,” Ms. Feild said. “And I’m worried for our consumers and our employees and for the people who were there. This is just devastating.”
Relatives of victims and bystanders waited at a community center for them to be interviewed and thenreleased by police. Monique Gutierrez, 39 years old, said she received a text message from her sister, Regina Kuruppu, at 11:15 a.m. of a shooting at the center, where she was working as an outpatient specialist.
“There’s a shoot out at my work,” she wrote. “In [sic] scared.” Ms. Gutierrez texted back: “Stay down as low as you can. I love you.”
Ryan Reyes, 32, said he learned late Wednesday that his boyfriend, Daniel Kaufman, 42, had been shot in the arm during the attack.
Mr. Reyes said Mr. Kaufman told him he had just taken his lunch break as a job counselor when he was shot outside an auditorium where most of the other victims were gunned down. Mr. Kaufman was admitted to a local hospital in what Mr. Reyes said was good condition.“I just feel relief that I know where he is finally,” said Mr. Reyes, who hadn’t heard from his boyfriend until learning he was in a hospital.
Later as police circled in on the alleged suspects, Magdaleno Contreras was feeding his bunnies in the backyard of his house on E. San Bernardino Avenue when he heard police calling for someone to surrender. He spotted several officers pointing at an SUV. He went inside his house and said he heard shots for five minutes.
“I panicked, ran inside and turned on the TV,” he said. His wife, Margarita, called their 20-year-old son, Hugo, who had just left the house with a younger sibling to get a haircut. Nearly four hours later, Hugo and his little brother, Aldair, were still not allowed back to the middle-class neighborhood that is home to Hispanics and Caucasians, as well as Asian immigrants.
The White House said President Barack Obama was monitoring the situation. And in what has become a ritual in the aftermath of a mass shooting, he repeated his call for stricter gun control laws.
“We have a pattern now of mass shootings in this country that has no parallel anywhere else in the world,” Mr. Obama told CBS News in an interview taped Wednesday.
In San Bernardino, pastors offered counseling to the victims. Raymond Turner, senior pastor at Temple Missionary Baptist Church, said the community has weathered other recent disasters, including massive forest fires in the San Bernardino Mountains and a fatal train derailment.
“San Bernardino has always been a community that comes together regardless of what our differences are,” he said.
Virginia Marquez, a San Bernardino city councilwoman, said: “We’re a strong, resilient city.”
California Gov. Jerry Brown said, “Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims’ families and everyone affected by the brutal attack. California will spare no effort in bringing these killers to justice.”
The shooting was the deadliest in the U.S. since the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in December 2012, when a 20-year-old shot and killed his mother in Newtown, Conn., then killed 20 children and six adult staff members at the school, according to Adam Lankford, associate professor at the University of Alabama’s Department of Criminal Justice in Tuscaloosa, Ala.