Fated pairing leads to tragedy in California
LOS ANGELES — In 2005, Enrique Marquez Jr. moved to Riverside, Calif. The young teenager would soon meet a new friend, living in the house next door, Syed Rizwan Farook.
An FBI affidavit released Thursday provides a close-up look at the fateful friendship that would bind the two young men, that within a few years would turn to talk of radical Islamic ideology and plans, never carried out, to attack a college they had attended or slaughter motorists on a nearby highway.
Farook, 28, and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, 29, died Dec. 2 in a gunfight with police after killing 14 of his co-workers at a holiday gathering in San Bernardino, Calif. The 24-year-old Marquez was charged Thursday with terrorism-related counts, including illegally purchasing two assault rifles used in the attack.
The details of their relationship are beginning to emerge.
A federal criminal complaint said the men met in Farook’s garage in 2005. By late that year, Farook was discussing Islam with the younger Marquez, and by 2011, Marquez, having converted to Islam, was spending most of his time at Farook’s home, where he would watch videos involving radical Islamic content.
Then, Marquez and Farook began planning attacks in southern California. That included buying guns. Marquez told investigators that around late 2011 he and Farook planned to bomb a crowded cafeteria or library at Riverside Community College, where both had been students, or mow down motorists with gunfire on a gridlocked southern California freeway, with both plots intended to maximize casualties, according to the documents charging Marquez.
Marquez bought a pair of AR-15 rifles from a sporting goods store that were planned to be used in these abandoned attacks. But Farook and his wife would later use them in the San Bernardino shootings. The purchases were unlawful, prosecutors allege, because Marquez signed legal documents saying the guns were only for the personal use of himself and his immediate family.
In 2013, their relationship begins to deteriorate and Marquez told investigators they ceased planning attacks. The following year, Farook would marry his accomplice in the San Bernardino shootings, Malik.
In the course of the investigation, investigators say Marquez disclosed that he was paid $200 monthly to enter into a “sham” marriage with the Russian sister of one of Farook’s in-laws to allow her to stay in the U.S.
Marquez faces an immigration fraud charge for the marriage.
The court records included a partial transcript of a 911 call Marquez made in the hours after the San Bernardino shootings. He tells the operator he’d given a gun to suspect Farook for “storage.” The call indicates the apparently distraught Marquez was also considering suicide.
The operator asks, “Why do you feel like you want to kill yourself?”
Marquez answers that his neighbour did the shooting.
The dispatcher then asks, “He used your gun?”
Marquez answers, “Yes. Oh my God.”