San Bernardino shooting
The two were killed in a gun battle with police hours after they had killed 14 and wounded another 17 (those numbers may change, officials said). They burst into a large conference room at the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino with assault weapons and began shooting.
San Bernardino is 100 kilometres southeast of Los Angeles.
The conference room was the scene of a holiday gathering of employees of the San Bernardino County Department of Public Health, the very department Farook worked for until last May. There were about 100 people in attendance when the shooting took place at about 11 a.m.
There were reports as many as three persons, dressed in assault-style clothing and with toque masks over their heads, burst into the room and began shooting. A device that may have been a bomb was later found by police and the bomb squad was called in to defuse it and two other explosive devices.
Police say they are “reasonably confident” that Farook, 28, and Malik, 27, were the only two shooters.
Both suspects were killed in a shootout with police about four hours after the morning rampage. A tip led police to a residence in Redlands, not far from San Bernardino, and they spotted a dark SUV leaving the area, of a make and model used by the shooters to leave the scene of the mass shooting.
Police followed the SUV when it left the residence in Redlands and soonafter it tried to speed away. A shootout ensued and the two occupants were shot dead; the dead suspects had assault rifles and weapons and weaponry were found inside the SUV. In the shootout a police officer was wounded slightly.
Police also said they took one person into custody as he was fleeing the scene of the gun battle in which the two suspects were killed. Police are unsure if this person is involved but say they are confident that only the two dead suspects took part in the mass shooting itself.
Farook was “quiet”
Until leaving last May, Farook, an American citizen, was an inspector with the public health department. The L.A. Times spoke with Griselda Reisinger, who once worked with Farook, and she said numerous people have left the department of late due to issues with management.
Neither police nor the FBI have identified a motive for the killings. David Bowdich, the assistant director of the Los Angeles office of the FBI, said terrorism was a “possibility” but that they were still investigating motive and “were not willing to go down that road yet.”
Meanwhile, Reisinger, who had been an environmental inspector for the health department, told the Times that Farook was a very quiet individual. “I would say hi and bye, but we never engaged him in conversation. He didn’t say much at all,” she said.
Reisinger said that when Farook had returned from paternity leave recently a baby shower was held for him. She also recalled that at last year’s holiday party in the same conference room where the shooting took place Wednesday that Farook was one of those in attendance.
Police also say that he was at the Wednesday gathering and then left in anger; he returned with Malik to commit murder. Law enforcement believe there was a degree of planning by the two attackers.
Farook recently went on a trip to Saudi Arabia, though officials say they do not know what he did there. The two had a six-month-old daughter they left with her grandmother.
