police after killing 14 people at a Christmas party in California in
America’s worst mass shooting in three years, authorities said.
Police identified the pair as Syed Farook, a 28-year-old US citizen who
worked for the local county, and Tashfeen Malik, 27, whose nationality
was unknown. They said the suspects were either married or engaged.
Jarrod Burguan, San Bernardino’s police chief, confirmed that both were
dead, and that police no longer believed a third suspect mentioned
earlier was at large.
The shooters targeted a year-end party taking place at a social services
center in San Bernardino, about an hour’s drive east of Los Angeles,
killing 14 people and wounding 17 more.
“We don’t have the motive at this point,” the police chief said. “We
have not ruled out terrorism.”
The massacre drew an angry response from President Barack Obama,
who once again urged Congress to pass tougher gun control measures to
stem America’s epidemic of gun violence.
According to Burguan, Farook was an environmental inspector who had
worked for the county health department for five years.
He and Malik were dressed in military-style gear and carried assault
weapons as they burst into the auditorium where the bloodbath took
place. The hall was let out for the holiday party by the Inland Regional
Center for the disabled.
Burguan said Farook had attended the Christmas party organized by the
health department and left after an apparent dispute, only to return a
short time later with Malik, armed with assault rifles and semiautomatic
handguns.
“Based upon how they were equipped, there had to be some degree of
planning that went into this,” he said. “I don’t think they just ran home
and put on these tactical clothes, grabbed guns and came back on a spur
of the moment thing.”
– ‘Twisted mindset’ –
He said the attackers left explosive devices behind and authorities were
only able to access the scene of the crime several hours after the
shooting.
There was no immediate information on the identity of the victims.
FBI agents in the early evening raided an apartment in the nearby town
of Redlands, where the two suspects were seen before the police chase
that ended in a shootout a few miles from the Inland Center.
The California chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations
(CAIR) denounced the killings. Farook’s brother-in-law, Farhan Khan,
said he had no clue what prompted the carnage.
“I am in shock that something like this could happen,” a visibly shaken
Khan told a press conference organized by CAIR.
The Los Angeles Times quoted some of Farook’s co-workers as saying
he had previously traveled to Saudi Arabia and returned with a new wife.
The couple had a six-month-old daughter and appeared to be “living the
American dream,” Patrick Baccari, a fellow inspector who shared a
cubicle with Farook, told the paper.
Hussam Ayloush, CAIR’s executive director in Los Angeles, said: “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.”
– Deadliest since Sandy Hook –
It was the country’s deadliest shooting since December 14, 2012, when a
young man killed 26 people, including 20 children, at Sandy Hook
elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut.
Witnesses at the California scene recounted barricading themselves in
offices and hiding as the sound of gunfire erupted.
Mark Stutte said his daughter was attending the party organized by the
county’s public health department and called him terrified while hiding
in a restroom as gunshots rang out in the background.
“It was really, really super scary,” he told local TV, as he wept. “I’m far
away. I couldn’t do anything for her.”
Lavinia Johnson, the center’s executive director, said she and her staff
hid in another building on the property for about two hours until they
were evacuated by police.
The local San Bernardino newspaper The Sun identified one of the
victims as Jennifer Stevens who underwent surgery for a gunshot wound
to the abdomen and was expected to recover.
It said Stevens, 22, had texted her mother right after the shooting saying:
“Mom, I’m at work, I’ve been shot.”
– ‘Pattern of mass shootings’ –
Obama, who just last week made a plea for action on gun control after
three people were killed at a family planning center in Colorado, voiced
his anger once more.
“The one thing we do know is that we have a pattern now of mass
shootings in this country that has no parallel anywhere else in the
world,” he told CBS News.
“There are some steps we could take, not to eliminate every one of these
mass shootings, but to improve the odds that they don’t happen as
frequently.”
Wednesday’s shooting, which came less than a week after a gunman
killed three people at a family planning center in Colorado, was certain
to further stoke the bitter debate about gun control in the United States.
In October, a gunman killed nine people at a community college in
Oregon before turning the gun on himself.
According to the site Mass Shooting Tracker, the latest attack brings to
352 the number of mass shootings in the United States so far this year. A
mass shooting is defined as four or more people shot in one incident.
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