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The guns used by the couple suspected of the massacre that killed 14 people and wounded 17 at a social services center in San Bernardino, California, were purchased legally in the United States, federal officials said Thursday.
The Associated Press, citing the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, said two of the weapons — two assault rifles and two handguns — were purchased by someone who is now under investigation.
The couple appeared to have planned the attack, but the motive for the deadliest U.S. mass shooting since Sandy Hook has not been determined, investigators said. At least 10 of the 17 wounded were in critical condition early Thursday, NBC reported.
Police named the suspects as Syed Rizwan Farook, 28, a U.S. citizen who had worked for the county for at least five years, and Tashfeen Malik, 27, whose nationality has not been determined. Both were killed in a police shootout following Wednesday morning’s attack.
The couple left their 6-month-old daughter with her grandmother before they carried out the attack at the Inland Regional Center, a complex of buildings that serves people with developmental disabilities, according to NBC News.
Meredith Davis of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said investigators are now working to make a connection to the last legal purchaser and the rampage, according to the AP. She said all four guns were bought four years ago but she did not say whether they were purchased out of state or how and when they got into the hands of the two shooters.
The mass shooting in San Bernardino, 60 miles east of Los Angeles, came three years after a gunman killed 26 people at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, before killing himself.
The San Bernardino couple had been at a party held for Farook’s fellow county employees. Farook, a county health inspector, became involved in some kind of dispute and left the premises “angry,” San Bernardino Police Chief Jarrod Burguan told reporters.
“These people came prepared to do what they did as if they were on a mission,” Burguan said. “They were armed with long guns, not with handguns.”
He said authorities had not determined a motive but had not ruled out terrorism or a workplace dispute. Multiple local, state and federal agencies are investigating.
“It’s all hands on deck for the FBI evidence response teams and the other investigators,” former FBI Assistant Director Chris Swecker said Thursday on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.” “They’ll be looking hard at phones, they’ll be looking at social media, they’ll be looking at computers. They’ll be dissecting this person’s life and social network.”
Farook, who police said was born in the U.S. in 1987, and Malik later returned to the center armed with multiple weapons, including .223-caliber assault rifles and handguns, and wearing combat-style clothing, and opened fire on the gathering before fleeing in a black SUV.
People at the party said there was no warning of the shooting. Anies Kondoker, an environmental engineer who works for the county, was inside the conference room when gunfire erupted at around 11 a.m. PT. She was shot twice in the hand and once in the stomach but doctors said no vital organs were hit, her husband, Salahin, told NBC.
“They just started shooting … they didn’t yell or say anything beforehand,” her husband told NBC News.
Burguan told reporters that the shooters’ actions indicated “some element of planning.”
“I don’t think they just ran home and put on some tactical-type clothes” and came back on the spur of the moment, he said.
Burguan confirmed that Farook and Malik were the man and woman who were killed in a shootout with police about five hours after the San Bernardino attack.
Police had earlier said as many as three attackers were involved, but Burguan said he was “reasonably confident at this point that we have two shooters and we have two suspects who are deceased.”
Reports first surfaced around 11:15 a.m. PT of a shooting at the center. Police were at the scene within four minutes, Burguan said.
The hunt for the black SUV led police to an address at the neighboring town of Redlands, and police chased a vehicle that was seen leaving that address.
Burguan said the chase ended with officers engaging in a gun battle with a man and a woman, both of whom were armed with assault rifles and handguns. A police officer was injured but not seriously, Burguan said.
During a sweep of the Inland Regional Center, police discovered what was believed to be at least one explosive device. The San Bernardino police chief said that “sensitive stuff” had also been found in the couple’s car, which was searched for explosives. Police were also searching a house in Redlands that was registered in Farook’s name, although Burguan could not confirm that it was the suspect’s residence.
The attack came less than three weeks after 132 people were killed in multiple assaults in Paris. The so-called Islamic State claimed responsibility for the Nov. 13 attacks, heightening fears that other Western targets were at risk from the terrorist group.
Even before police had formally identified Farook and Malik, a news conference was called by the Los Angeles chapter of the Muslim advocacy group Council on American-Islamic Relations, where a man who said he was Farook’s brother-in-law told reporters he was bewildered by the San Bernardino attack.
Farhan Khan, who Reuters reported is married to Farook’s sister, said: “Why would he do that? Why would he do something like this? I have absolutely no idea, I am in shock myself.”
Hussam Ayloush, executive director of CAIR in the Los Angeles area, appealed to the public not to jump to conclusions about the suspects’ motives.
“Is it work? Is it rage-related? Is it mental illness? Is it extreme ideology?” he said. “We just don’t know.”
The killings also come less than a week after a gunman killed three people and wounded nine at a shooting at a Planned Parenthood Clinic in Colorado. There have been more than 350 U.S. shootings in which four or more people were wounded so far this year, according to the crowd-sourced website shootingtracker.com, which keeps a running tally of U.S. gun violence.
