A Southern California county government employee and his wife killed 14 people and wounded 17 others at a San Bernardino office building in a precision assault Wednesday morning before they were killed in a shootout with police in the afternoon.
San Bernardino Police Chief Jarrod Burguan identified the shooting suspects as Syed Rizwan Farook, 28, and Tashfeen Malik, 27. Burguan said that Farook was born in the U.S. and had worked at the San Bernardino County Department of Public Health for five years. Malik's nationality was not identified. Family members told the Associated Press the couple were married.
Law enforcement officials said late Wednesday 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 each carrying an AR-15 rifle and and a pistol when they were shot and killed by police after a brief chase in their black SUV about 2 miles from the initial shooting site. 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."
In addition to the explosives found at the SUV, authorities discovered and detonated three pipe bombs late Wednesday at the Inland Regional Center, the complex where the initial shooting took place about 60 miles east of Los Angeles.
Another source described a house in Redlands that was being searched in connection with the shooting as "an IED facility." The source said investigators discovered multiple pipe bombs in the house, as well as small explosives that were strapped to remote-controlled cars.
The initial shooting happened shortly before 11 a.m. PST at a conference area in a social services center for the disabled, where Farook's colleagues were holding a holiday banquet. Witnesses said the suspects were wearing body armor and masks and moved with grim precision. Gunfire sent people scrambling to hide under desks, barricade themselves in room or flee for their lives.
"They came prepared to do what they did, as if they were on a mission," Burguan, the police chief, said earlier Wednesday.
The chief said that Farook had angrily left the party before returning with Malik. However, other investigators doubted the alleged dispute had taken place or whether the shooting could solely be chalked up to a workplace dispute due to the apparent planning behind the attack as well as the heavy weaponry used.
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 before his colleague 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 Farook came back, word spread that he had gotten married 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.
The couple dropped off their 6-month-old daughter with relatives Wednesday morning, saying they had a doctor's appointment, Hussam Ayloush, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), said after talking with family. Farhan Khan, who is married to Farook's sister, told reporters he last spoke to his brother-in-law about a week ago. He said he was in shock, condemned the violence, and had "absolutely no idea why he would do this."
FBI spokesman David Bowdich acknowledged that "adjustments" had been made in the investigation with an eye on the possibility terrorism was involved.
"It's a possibility, but we are not willing to go down that road yet," Bowdich said.
About four hours after the shooting, with police looking for a dark SUV, officers staking out the Redlands home saw a vehicle matching that description. Authorities pursued the SUV, and a gun battle broke out around 3 p.m., authorities said. One officer suffered a minor injury.
The aftermath of the shootout was captured live by television news helicopters.
It was unclear where the suspects may have been during the nearly four hours following the lightning-quick attack, but they did not get far. A police spokeswoman said police came across the SUV while "doing follow-up work," and several reports said the car was at a nearby home police were staking out when the suspects got in and tried to flee. It was not immediately clear if that home was the one searched later in Redlands.
Word that police were hot on their trail came even as emergency responders were treating the wounded on the scene, and sparked a flurry of law enforcement racing to the scene just blocks away. The gunfight, caught on cellphone video by a bystander, was a furious exchange of bullets in which a passenger in the SUV blasted at police through the shattered rear windshield before the vehicle was disabled in a hail of return fire.
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2015/12/03/2-suspects-killed-shootout-san-bernardino-massacre-14-killed/
