|
 Syed Rizwan Farook, 28, and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, 27, were
killed in a shootout with police five hours after Wednesday's
massacre at the Inland Regional Center social services agency in the
city of San Bernardino, about 60 miles (100 km) east of Los Angeles.
Twenty-one people were wounded in the attack, which ranks as the
deadliest instance of U.S. gun violence since the December 2012
shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, in
which 27 people were killed.
The dead and wounded from Wednesday's bloodshed accounted for nearly
half of the estimated 75 to 80 people who were in the room where the
armed couple opened fire.
San Bernardino Police Chief Jarrod Burguan told a news conference
the search of a townhouse leased by the two shooting suspects in the
nearby community of Redlands turned up flash drives, computers and
cell phones.
Officials in Washington familiar with the investigation said there
was no hard evidence of a direct connection between the couple and
any militant group abroad, but the electronics would be checked to
see if the suspects had been browsing on jihadist websites or social
media.
 One U.S. government source told Reuters the FBI was examining
information indicating that Farook was in contact with individuals
who had themselves been under FBI investigation, some from cases
already closed. The source also said it was possible that one or
more of the Farook contacts under scrutiny were overseas.
But no information has emerged suggesting any ties or contacts
between Farook and the Islamic State or other specific militant
groups, the source said.
IDEOLOGY OR WORKPLACE ANGER?
Officials from President Barack Obama to Police Chief Burguan said
the attack may have been motivated by extremist ideology but that
questions of motive remained unanswered.
"It is possible that this was terrorist-related. But we don't know,"
Obama told reporters. "It is also possible that this was
workplace-related."
Farook, a U.S. citizen born in Illinois, was the son of Pakistani
immigrants, according to Hussam Ayloush, who heads the Los Angeles
area chapter of the Muslim advocacy group Council on
American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).
Malik, who had a 6-month-old daughter with Farook, was a Pakistani
native living in Saudi Arabia when they married, Ayloush said.
David Bowdich, FBI assistant director in Los Angeles, said Malik was
admitted to the United State on a K-1 "fiancee visa" and was
traveling on a Pakistani passport.
The couple entered the United States in July 2014 after a trip that
included Pakistan, Bowdich said. Farook also visited Saudi Arabia
for nine days in the summer of 2014, the kingdom's embassy in
Washington said.
The director of the Islamic Center of Riverside, a mosque Farook
attended regularly for two years, described him as a devout Muslim
who made the pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia a few years ago and
celebrated his wedding reception at the mosque.
"His degree of faith is very high," the director, Mustafa Kuko, told
Reuters. "He was a very quiet person, peaceful, never had an
argument with anyone or a dispute."
Kuko said Farook attended morning and evening prayers from 2012 to
2014, when he abruptly stopped coming.
 Farook, who according to Burguan had no criminal record, worked as
an inspector for San Bernardino County Department of Environmental
Health, the agency throwing the holiday party that came under
attack.
Police cited witness accounts that Farook had been attending the
celebration but stormed off in anger, then returned with Malik armed
with assault gear and opened fire. Burguan said they sprayed the
room with 65 to 70 rounds.
Police officer Mike Madden, one of the first to arrive on the scene,
recalled the pandemonium and sheer panic he encountered entering the
hall, reeking with the smell of gunpowder and doused in blood and
spray from the automatic sprinkler system as fire alarms wailed.
[to top of second column] |
"It was unspeakable, the carnage we were seeing," he recounted at an
evening news conference in San Bernardino.
MORE WEAPONS, EXPLOSIVES AT HOUSE
Burguan said the couple had two assault-style rifles, two
semi-automatic handguns and 1,600 rounds of ammunition in their
rented sport utility vehicle, when they were killed.
At the townhouse, police found another 4,500 rounds, 12 pipe bombs
and bomb-making equipment. One bomb was rigged to a remote-control
device.
The guns were legally purchased in the United States, said Meredith
Davis, a spokeswoman for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms
and Explosives.
Burguan said Farook bought the two handguns. The rifles were
purchased by someone else, who Davis said was not linked to the
investigation.
As the FBI-led investigation pressed on Thursday, authorities
completed formally notifying the families of the 14 people who died
and made their names public.
The victims, all from Southern California, ranged in age from 26 to
60, and most were men, according to the county coroner. All but two
of the dead and three of the wounded were county employees.
In addition to sparking further debate on gun control laws, the
latest slaying in the United States took place with much of the
world on edge following the Nov. 13 attacks in Paris by Islamic
State militants that killed 130 people.
Ayloush urged the public not to jump to conclusions about the
motives behind the San Bernardino attack. He said he was concerned
about a backlash against the Muslim community in view of the rise of
Islamic State and some opposition among politicians and the public
in the United States over U.S. plans to accept Syrian war refugees.
"We're living in a very difficult time," he told CNN. "There's a lot
of Islamophobia out there, a lot of anti-Muslim sentiment, fueled by
pundits here and there trying to blame a whole community for the
acts of a few."
About 200 worshipers gathered Thursday night at the Ahmadiyya Muslim
Community mosque, San Bernardino's largest, to hold a vigil for
victims of the shooting.
Meanwhile, a larger, more diverse crowd estimated by police at about
3,500 packed the San Manuel Stadium, a municipal baseball park
downtown, for a candlelight memorial.
"We're here to support our community and be a visual representation
of the actual religion of Islam, to show we are caring," said Samar
Natour, 16, wearing a pale blue hijab head scarf and holding a sign
with a hand-drawn American flag and the message: "We stand with San
Bernardino."
Fighting back tears, Anthony Quayle, 33, said he was emotional
seeing the community draw together in the face of tragedy.
"I've grown up in this city. I love this city, and I want to be a
part of bringing it back together," he said.
(Additional reporting by Dan Whitcomb, Tim Reid and Rory Carroll in
San Bernardino,; Suzannah Gonzales in Chicago; Mark Hosenball, Susan
Heavey Megan Cassella, Julia Edwards, Doina Chiacu, Lesley Wroughton
and Roberta Rampton in Washington; Eric M Johnson in Seattle and
Lisa Richwine, Nichola Groom and Alex Dobuzinskis in Los Angeles;
Writing by Steve Gorman and Bill Trott; Editing by Will Dunham and
Cynthia Osterman)
[© 2015 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.]
Copyright 2015 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
 |
