Police said the two shooters were a married couple: Syed Rizwan Farook, 28, a former county health worker born in the United States, and Tashfeen Malik, 27, a woman described as his Pakistani-born wife.
Here's what we know about Syed Farook and Tashfeen Malik. “They came prepared to do what they did, as if they were on a mission,” Burguan had after Wednesday’s attack and a police shootout that left two alleged shooters dead several miles from the attack.
An FBI official speaking hours after the San Bernardino shooting said authorities could not rule out terrorism as a possible motivation.
“One of the big questions that will come up repeatedly is: ‘Is this terrorism?’ ” said David Bowdich, assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles office. “It is a possibility. We are making some adjustments to our investigation. It is a possibility. But we don’t know that yet. And we are not willing to go down that road yet.”
Police say at least two attackers stormed the center wearing wearing black masks and armed with assault rifles and handguns.
Earlier in the day, the suspects dropped off their 6-month-old daughter with Farook’s mother, saying they had a doctor’s appointment, said Hussam Ayloush, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Los Angeles.
Later, Farook attended the office party hosted by the San Bernardino County Department of Public Health, where he had worked as an inspector, earning more than $71,000 in salary and benefits in 2013. Farook then left the gathering “under circumstances described as angry or something of that nature,” said Burguan, the police chief.
Police said Farook then returned with Malik and the pair opened fire on the crowd before fleeing in a black SUV, which was later spotted about two miles from the shooting site with the area under near-total lockdown. Some unconfirmed reports quoted police saying the attackers also were outfitted with body cameras.
A shootout with police left both suspects dead and the vehicle peppered with bullet holes and with its windows shattered.
“I don’t think they grabbed the guns and tactical gear on a spur-of-the-moment thing,” Burguan said.
Muslim community leader Ayloush described Malik as a Pakistani-born immigrant who lived in Saudi Arabia before marrying Farook. Two FBI officials told The Washington Post that Farook was not under FBI investigation. It’s not clear whether he had links to any other people under FBI investigation.
“Right now, as we continue to drill down our information, it looks like we have two shooters,” Burguan said. “We are comfortable that the two shooters that went into the building are the two shooters that are deceased.”
But many other questions loomed. Among them was whether the attack was pre-planned and why the suspects amassed assault-style gear and arms in a tidy residential neighborhood about 50 miles east of Los Angeles where the couple was often seen relaxing in their back yard.
Burguan declined to comment on what may have precipitated the attack. But, he said, the couple seemed too well-prepared for the shooting to be viewed as a spontaneous act. He added: “We have not ruled out terrorism.”
“I have no idea why he would do something like this,” Farhan Khan, who is married to Farook’s sister, said at a news conference. “I cannot express how sad I am today.”
The two left behind little in the way of a paper trail — no apparent criminal record, no Facebook page or Twitter account. Speaking to the Los Angeles Times, co-workers who knew Farook described him as a quiet and polite man who held no obvious grudges against people in the office. They said he recently traveled to Saudi Arabia and returned with a woman he met online.
The officer had recently held a shower for the couple’s new baby, and the two seemed to be “living the American dream,” said Patrick Baccari, a fellow inspector who shared a cubicle with Farook.
Griselda Reisinger, who worked with Farook before leaving the agency in May, and other colleagues told the Los Angeles Times that Farook was a devout Muslim but not vocal about his religion."
That's everything on Farook from The Washington Post article currently on their website's front page. I removed the passages that did not relate to Syed Rizwan Farook.