HE'S A TERRORIST
(But so are these guys ...) (AND this guy)
Syed Farook joins long list of murderous psychos enabled by NRA’s sick gun jihad against America in the name of profit
THEY WERE ARMED to the teeth and ready for a sickening second round.
A mass-murdering California couple amassed a terrifying arsenal for a potential followup attack before their deaths in a police fusillade of nearly 400 bullets.
Authorities found more than 7,000 rounds of ammunition for assault rifles, 9-mm. handguns and .22-caliber rifles in the home and rented SUV of Syed Farook and his wife, Tashfeen Malik.
A dozen pipe bombs, along with tools to create homemade explosives, were also recovered from the Redlands residence where the couple lived with their 6-month-old daughter.
A photo obtained by CBS News shows a yellow and black duffel bag stuffed with several pipe bombs. The bag was found at the house. A second photo shows an explosive device found at the county facility where 14 people were shot to death. That pic shows a toy car with what appears to be a remote detonator and three pipes.
“Clearly, they could have continued to do another attack,” San Bernardino Police Chief Jarrod Burguan said Thursday. “We intercepted them before that could happen, fortunately.”
While several reports indicated Farook, 28, was communicating with suspected jihadists in the Los Angeles area and overseas, authorities insisted it was too soon to declare a motive in the San Bernardino slayings.
The FBI was poring through the suspect’s online presence and his phone records in search of a terrorist link in the 355th U.S. mass shooting of 2015. Other potential evidence was flown from California to the FBI lab in Washington.
“It you look at the obvious amount of pre-planning, the amount of armaments that he had, the weapons and the ammunition, there was obviously a mission here,” said David Bowdich, head of the FBI’s Los Angeles office.
The feds are investigating whether Farook was radicalized during one of his visits to the Middle East. He wasn’t on the radar of local or federal authorities before the grisly attack, and had no criminal record.
Some of Farook’s county health department colleagues reportedly threw a baby shower for the couple earlier this year. The other possible motive appears to be a work dispute.
Farook and his wife died Wednesday in a rolling gunfight through San Bernardino streets about four hours after unleashing the deadly mayhem.
More than 450 shots were exchanged in the couple’s last stand after Malik, 27, opened fire on cops with an assault rifle.
Farook and Malik, in militarystyle outfits, had burst through an unlocked door into the party around 11 a.m. and started shooting — unloading 65 to 75 rounds at the stunned revelers.
“We don’t know if there was any one person they targeted,” Burguan said.
The killer couple left their daughter with her grandma and said they were heading to a doctor’s appointment hours earlier.
Farook was at the Wednesday morning party in San Bernardino, and left early before returning with his wife and opening fire. The pair, who fled the Inland Regional Center before any of the 300 responding cops arrived, left behind three unexploded pipe bombs attached to a remote detonator. None of them exploded.
“It was unspeakable, the carnage that we were seeing, the number of people who were injured and unfortunately already dead, and the pure panic on the face of those individuals that were still in need,” said Lt. Mike Madden, one of the first cops to arrive at the center.
At the time of the shooting, there were about 80 people in the room for a morning training session scheduled before the start of the holiday party, police said.
Officials on Thursday raised the number of people wounded from 17 to 21.
Farook visited Saudi Arabia in 2013 and 2014, and reportedly wed his bride during the trip two years ago. The couple had met online, and were married in the Muslim holy city of Mecca, NBC News reported.
“They were all friendly,” said family lawyer Mohammad Abuershaid about the relationship between the wife and her in-laws. “They were family.”
Malik was in California on a K-1 visa issued in her native Pakistan, and arrived in the United States in July 2014. The type of paperwork she received is commonly known as a “fiancée visa.”
Farook spoke by phone and via social media with suspected terrorists before the shootings, according to reports. The back-andforth was apparently infrequent, and the last conversations were several months before the mass murder, CNN reported.
Neighbors said the FBI raided the Corona, Calif., home of Farook’s father early Thursday, with the killer’s brother emerging at 5 a.m. with his hands raised in the air.
Abuershaid told the Daily News the predawn raid was just
the FBI doing its due diligence.
“We just want to help the investigators with any type of questions that they have,” the lawyer said.
He wouldn’t provide details about the couple’s daughter. “She’s OK,” Abuershaid said.President Obama said Thursday the attack was possibly terrorism-related, adding that the motive wasn’t clear.
Officials released staggering details regarding the amount of firepower used in the gunfight that left both young parents dead. Twentythree officers fired 380 rounds at the couple’s rented black Ford Expedition, with 76 rounds from the .223-caliber rifles fired back during a car chase and shootout, Burguan said.
Farook’s wife fired the first bullets — from the back of the vehicle — before her doomed husband joined the fray. One police officer was shot and a second wounded by flying shrapnel in the wild gunfight before cops uncovered the couple’s two massive ammunition caches.
More than 1,400 additional rifle rounds and more than 200 rounds for a 9-mm. handgun were inside the bullet-riddled SUV. And more than 4,500 rounds were also found inside a Redlands house where the fugitive couple was first spotted four hours after Wednesday’s mass murder, authorities said.
The two assault rifles and two handguns used in Wednesday’s attack were purchased legally, authorities said.
The assault rifles were a .223-caliber DPMS model AR-15 and a Smith & Wesson M&P15. One of the 9-mm. handguns was manufactured by Llama, and the other by Smith & Wesson.
Farook bought the handguns himself at Annie’s Get Your Gun shop in Corona, which bills itself as a family-friendly business. The owner of the small shop, where the storefront is protected by iron bars, declined comment Thursday. It was unclear who bought the high-powered rifles, or how they landed in the couple’s possession. California requires paperwork when guns change hands privately, said Meredith Davis of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
Farook, a Chicago-born U.S. citizen who had worked for the county health department for five years, and his wife welcomed their daughter over the summer. A baby registry for the couple said their girl was due May 17. The wish list included four items: a car seat, an 88-count pack of diapers, a bottle of baby wash and a package of ear swabs.