SAN BERNARDINO, Calif. — Investigators on Thursday hunted for a motive in the backgrounds of a husband and wife suspected in a shooting rampage that left 14 dead and 17 others wounded here, while federal agents traced the origins of the four guns recovered from the suspects — all bought legally — and officers combed through a sprawling set of crime scenes for evidence.
The suspects, identified as Syed Rizwan Farook, 28, and Tashfeen Malik, 27 — armed with .223-caliber assault rifles and semiautomatic handguns and wearing masks and body armor — are believed to have opened fire at a social services center here around 11 a.m. Wednesday. They died hours later in a shootout with police on a residential street.
President Barack Obama said in an Oval Office statement Thursday morning that it was possible that the attacks in San Bernardino were terrorist-related, but he said it was also possible they were work-related. At this stage, he said, law enforcement still does not know why this "terrible event occurred." He said the FBI was investigating.
Two of the people wounded in the attack remained in critical condition Thursday morning and three others were listed in fair condition at Loma Linda University Medical Center, Kerry Heinrich, chief executive of the hospital, said.
Two of the guns recovered were bought by one of the suspects killed in the shootout, and the other two were bought by a third person who is not considered a suspect, said a senior federal law enforcement official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Farook had been at a holiday party at the center for the county health department, where he worked as an environmental inspector. He soon left in anger after a dispute of some sort, Chief Jarrod Burguan of the San Bernardino Police Department said, only to return alongside Malik. Hours later, the couple were killed during the shootout.
"We don't have the motive at this time," Burguan said. "We have not ruled out terrorism."
David Bowdich, assistant director of the FBI's Los Angeles office, said the agency was investigating several possible motives, including terrorism.
Burguan said: "There had to be some degree of planning that went into this. I don't think they just ran home and put on these tactical clothes."
By early Thursday, none of the victims of the attack had been publicly identified.
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SAN BERNARDINO, Calif. — Investigators on Thursday hunted for a motive in the backgrounds of a husband and wife suspected in a shooting rampage that left 14 dead and 17 others wounded here, while federal agents traced the origins of the four guns recovered from the suspects — at least two of them bought legally — and officers combed through a sprawling set of crime scenes for evidence.
The suspects, identified as Syed Rizwan Farook, 28, and Tashfeen Malik, 27 — armed with .223-caliber assault rifles and semiautomatic handguns and wearing masks and body armor — are believed to have opened fire at a social services center here around 11 a.m. Wednesday, unleashing the deadliest mass shooting since the assault on an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, nearly three years ago. They died hours later in a shootout with police on a residential street.
The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives confirmed that it had traced all four guns, and that two were purchased legally by someone linked to the investigation. But the agency would not identify the buyer, identify which two weapons those were, or say where they were bought.
Officials said the two assault rifles were variants of the AR-15, the semiautomatic version of the military M-16 rifle; one was made by DPMS Panther Arms, and the other was a Smith & Wesson M&P model, a designation meaning military and police. A senior law enforcement official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said one handgun was made by Llama, and the other by Smith and Wesson.
California is among a handful of states that ban the sale or possession of many assault weapons, including the most common models, although people who owned those firearms before they were banned are allowed to keep them. It was not known where and how the suspects obtained their weapons, which might have been sold originally in other states, and might have gone through multiple owners. Overall, California has the strictest gun laws in the nation, according to the most recent report card by the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence.
Farook had been at a holiday party at the center for the county health department, where he worked as an environmental inspector. He soon left in anger after a dispute of some sort, Chief Jarrod Burguan of the San Bernardino Police Department said, only to return alongside Malik. Hours later, the couple were killed during the shootout.
"We don't have the motive at this time," Burguan said. "We have not ruled out terrorism."
David Bowdich, assistant director of the FBI's Los Angeles office, said the agency was investigating several possible motives, including terrorism.
Burguan said: "There had to be some degree of planning that went into this. I don't think they just ran home and put on these tactical clothes."
Through the night, investigators scoured at least three sites looking for clues: the scene of the shooting at the Inland Regional Center, a sprawling facility that provides services for thousands of people with disabilities where the holiday party was held; the site about two miles away where the couple died in a shootout; and a townhouse in nearby Redlands.
Officers used a crane to break through windows and the door at the small townhouse and set off controlled explosions inside the home, fearing the suspects could have left explosives behind. Bomb squads had also disposed of explosives the suspects left behind them at the regional center.
By early Thursday, none of the victims of the attack had been publicly identified.
Most of the carnage unfolded in a single room of the Inland Regional Center, police said, which was filled with people with whom Farook had a personal connection. While shots rang out, others in the building cowered and hid, sending text messages or making frantic calls.
As the suspects fled in a black SUV, large parts of the city were paralyzed. Residents were told to remain indoors, and government buildings, stores, offices and at least one school were either closed or put on lockdown. Yellow school buses filled with survivors of the shooting were escorted by police vans to meet anxious relatives at a church.
Late Wednesday afternoon, dozens of heavily armed police officers in tactical gear descended on a residential neighborhood in pursuit of the attackers. Witnesses described a wild scene as dozens of officers closed in on a vehicle, with hundreds of shots fired as the people in the vehicle fought police.
Burguan said there were at least 20 officers involved in the gun battle.
The chief said that a third person had fled the scene and been taken into custody, but that police did not know his role, if any. A police officer was wounded in the shootout and was being treated at a hospital for injuries that were not life-threatening.
In a year repeatedly marked by such massacres, San Bernardino joined a tragic roster that includes Charleston, South Carolina; Roseburg, Oregon; and Colorado Springs, Colorado, where just five days earlier a gunman killed three people and wounded nine at a Planned Parenthood clinic.
President Barack Obama once again called for better background checks and new restrictions on access to guns.
"We should come together in a bipartisan basis at every level of government to make these rare as opposed to normal," he said on CBS News. He said: "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. And there's 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."
Investigators on Thursday were puzzling over the motives over the latest attack, and there were conflicting accounts of what had led to the shooting.
"We will go where the evidence takes us," Bowdich said.
One senior federal official said that Farook had not been the target of any active terrorism investigation, and that he had not been someone the FBI was concerned about before Wednesday's attack. Other officials said the FBI was looking into a possible connection between Farook and at least one person who was investigated for terrorism a few years ago.
The attack does not appear to fit neatly into any category — mass shooters usually act alone, and are rarely women — and raises unusual questions for investigators. If the killers were not terrorists, why were they prepared and equipped in advance for violence on a large scale? If they were terrorists, why did the assault appear to have elements of a workplace grudge, and why did they not choose a more symbolic or prominent target?
The attackers drove up in a dark SUV to a complex of buildings run by the Inland Regional Center, spent "several minutes" shooting inside one of the buildings before fleeing, Burguan said.
"They were dressed and equipped in a way that indicates they were prepared," he said at a news conference about three hours after the shooting. "They came prepared to do what they did, as if they were on a mission."
For hundreds of people who worked in the Inland Regional Center or were clients of its services, a quiet morning turned into a scene of utter panic and bloodshed, as people fled or hid behind locked doors and under desks, communicating with family and friends through panicked phone calls and text messages.
Jamille Navarro, who works with special needs children at the center, called her mother, Olivia, saying that there were gunman in the building.
"She was hiding in her room," Olivia Navarro said, crying. "They turned off the lights. She was whispering because she didn't want to be heard. I told her to stop talking. I said, 'All right, I'll be right there, turn out the lights, don't do a thing.' Why would somebody want to hurt somebody who helps children?"