2 Suspects Stockpiled Bombs and Bullets; Terrorism Is Aspect of Rampage Inquiry

SAN BERNARDINO, Calif.: The married couple who police say killed 14 people at a social services center had built more than a dozen pipe bombs and stockpiled thousands of rounds of ammunition, officials said Thursday, and they fired as many as 150 bullets at victims and police officers in a rampage that shattered a quiet day and ended in their own deaths.

The FBI is treating the shooting as a potential terrorist act, though they are far from concluding that it was, two law enforcement officials said Thursday. The suspects' extensive arsenal, their recent Middle East travels and evidence that one had been in touch with people with Islamist extremist views, both in the United States and abroad, all contributed to the decision to refocus the investigation.

But officials emphasized that they were unclear what set off the attack, and said they were not ready to call it terrorism.

The suspects, Syed Rizwan Farook, 28, and Tashfeen Malik, 27, are believed to have opened fire inside the Inland Regional Center on Wednesday. In addition to the 14 people killed, the authorities now say 21 were injured, four more than originally said. The attack was the nation's deadliest mass shooting since the assault on an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, nearly three years ago.

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Both at the center, and hours later on an a quiet residential street where Farook and Malik died in a shootout with the police, this city was rocked by a barrage of gunfire more typical of a war zone.

The suspects fired 65 to 75 rifle rounds inside the center, leaving behind four spent high-capacity magazines. Cornered after a chase, "the suspects are believed to have fired 76 rifle rounds at the officers," said Jarrod Burguan, the San Bernardino police chief. In the shootout with 23 officers from seven different agencies, he said, "Law enforcement fired approximately 380 rounds at the suspects."

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During the shootout, a San Bernardino officer was shot in the leg, and a sheriff's deputy was cut by flying debris, Burguan said.

Most of the carnage unfolded in a single room of the Inland Regional Center, the 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.

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The suspects were armed with two .223-caliber assault rifles and two 9 mm semiautomatic pistols, and they left behind at the service center an explosive that did not detonate, made of three pipe bombs, Burguan said. In a rented Ford Expedition with Utah plates, he said, the couple had 1,400 rounds for the rifles and 200 for the handguns with them at the time of the shootout.

At the home where they apparently lived in the nearby city of Redlands, officers found more than 2,500 rounds for the assault rifles, more than 2,000 for the pistols, several hundred rounds for a .22-caliber rifle, and 12 pipe bombs. There were also supplies for making more of them.

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"Clearly they were equipped and they could have done another attack," Burguan said at a news conference Thursday. "We intercepted them before that happened, obviously."

Law enforcement officials said the FBI had uncovered evidence that Farook was in contact over several years with extremists domestically and abroad, including at least one person in the United States who was investigated for suspected terrorism by federal authorities in recent years, but had not been charged. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

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The officials called the case perplexing, saying that no clear evidence of terrorism had emerged, though the attack was clearly premeditated. The victims were Farook's co-workers at the county health department, and the shooting may have involved grievances against them, but it did not fit the mold for workplace violence, either. The idea that this was a workplace argument that spiraled out of control seems far-fetched, the officials said, given the explosives and the preparation.

"You don't take your wife to a workplace shooting, and especially not as prepared as they were," said a senior law enforcement official briefed on the investigation. "He could have been radicalized, ready to go with some type of attack, and then had a dispute at work and decided to do something."

An overnight review of Farook's electronic devices did not provide clear answers to investigators' questions, but the officials noted that the investigation was in its early phases.

"We do not yet know the motive; we cannot rule anything out at this point," said David Bowdich, the assistant FBI director in charge of the Los Angeles office. "We don't know if this was the intended target or there was something that triggered him to do this immediately."

Asked if the design of the explosives had come from Inspire, an online magazine published by an arm of al-Qaida, Bowdich said investigators were looking into that possibility.

Two other senior U.S. security officials said that FBI counterterrorism officials were overseeing the investigation because of the possibility that it might be terrorism, not because they had concluded that it was.

The FBI has investigated thousands of Muslims for potential ties to terrorists in the years since the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, many of whom were never linked to any crimes. The details about Farook that have emerged, including the arsenal he and his wife had indicating a preparedness to commit violence on a large scale, have prompted investigators to look deeper into whether he had connections to militants or extremist ideology.

Farook, a U.S. citizen, was born in Illinois to Pakistani immigrant parents. Family members said he had been a devout Sunni Muslim, and on a dating website several years ago, he listed Urdu as his mother tongue. He had gone to Saudi Arabia multiple times, including a 2013 trip for the annual hajj, the trip to Mecca that all Muslims are expected to complete at least once, federal officials said.

Bowdich said that Farook visited Pakistan last year, and that he and Malik entered the United States from Pakistan in July 2014. She traveled on a Pakistani passport and entered the United States on a K-1 visa, a 90-day visa given to fiancés planning to marry Americans. The couple applied on Sept. 30, 2014, for a permanent resident green card for Malik, which requires passing criminal and national security background checks using FBI and Department of Homeland Security databases. She was granted a conditional green card in July 2015.

The suspects arrived at the Inland Regional Center at 11 a.m. Wednesday, armed with the four guns and wearing masks. Some witnesses said they had also worn body armor, but Burguan said that appeared to be wrong, and that the suspects were wearing "tactical vests," with pockets for spare magazines and other equipment.

President Barack Obama said in an Oval Office statement Thursday morning that it was possible that the attacks in San Bernardino were terrorism-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."

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, the chief executive of the hospital, said. "All of the patients are gunshot wound victims," he said, declining to give more detail.
Coroner's teams were still working at Inland Regional on Thursday, and law enforcement officials said some of the bodies of victims remained there.

The two handguns that were recovered were bought by Farook, and all four weapons were bought legally, Burguan said. A senior federal law enforcement official said the assault rifles were bought by a third person who is not considered a suspect.

Officials said the two assault rifles were variants of the AR-15, the semi-automatic 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. The senior law enforcement official said one handgun was made by Llama, and the other by Smith and Wesson.

Witnesses to the massacre reported one, two or three gunmen, and on Wednesday, officials said they thought there were probably three. Later, the police detained a person who was fleeing on foot away from the shootout with officers.

"We did ultimately determine that he was not involved in the incident," Burguan said Thursday. "He is not a suspect."

Investigators were confident that there were just two people who did the shooting, he said.