Police investigate mass shooting
SAN BERNARDINO, CALIF. (AP) >> As many as three gunmen believed to be wearing military-style gear opened fire Wednesday at a Southern California social services center “as if they were on a mission,” killing at least 14 people and wounding more than a dozen others, authorities said.
Hours later, police hunting for the attackers riddled a black SUV with gunfire several miles away, and one person lay motionless in the street — dead or dying — with a gun nearby. Officers appeared to remove a second person from the vehicle.
San Bernardino Police Sgt. Vicki Cervantes said authorities had not immediately confirmed whether those in the SUV were involved in the morning carnage. And the hunt went on, apparently for a possible third gunman. A law officer suffered minor injuries in the afternoon shootout.
It was the nation’s deadliest mass shooting since the Newton, Connecticut, attack in December 2012 that left 26 children and adults dead.
Police shed no light on a motive for Thursday’s massacre, which came just five days after a gunman opened fire at Planned Parenthood in Colorado, killing three.
“They came prepared to do what they did, as if they were on a mission,” San Bernardino Police Chief Jarrod Burguan said, noting the attackers carried long guns — which can mean rifles or shotguns.
Witnesses said several people locked themselves in their offices, desperately waiting to be rescued by police, after gunfire erupted at the Inland Regional Center, which serves people with developmental disabilities. Some people telephoned their loved ones and whispered to them what was going on.
The attack took place in a conference area where the San Bernardino County Department of Public Health was renting space to hold a banquet, said Marybeth Feild, president and CEO of the center. She said the building houses at least 25 employees as well as a library and conference center.
FBI agents and other law enforcement authorities converged on the center and searched room to room for the attacker or attackers, but it was feared that they had escaped.
Ten of the wounded were hospitalized in critical condition, and three were in serious condition, San Bernardino Fire Chief Tom Hannemann said. Police cautioned that the numbers of dead and wounded were early estimates that could change.
No weapons were recovered at the center, though authorities were investigating unidentified items in the building and brought in bomb squads, Burguan said.
San Bernardino police spokesman Sgt. Vicki Cervantes told The Associated Press there were reports from witnesses of one to three gunmen.
As the manhunt went on, stores, office buildings and at least one school were locked down in the city of 214,000 people about 60 miles east of Los Angeles, and roads were blocked off.
Triage units were set up outside the center, and people were seen being wheeled away on stretchers. Others walked quickly from a building with their hands up. They were searched by police before being reunited with loved ones.
President Barack Obama was briefed on the attack by his homeland security adviser.
He said it was too early to know the shooters’ motives, but urged the country to take steps to reduce the frequency of mass shootings. He told CBS that stricter gun laws, including stronger background checks, would make the country safer.
“The one thing we do know is that we have a pattern now of mass shootings in this country that has no parallel anywhere else in the world, and there’s some steps we could take, not to eliminate every one of these mass shootings, but to improve the odds that they don’t happen as frequently,” Obama said.
The shooting sounded like “an organized plot,” and preliminary information seems to indicate that “this is personal, and there seems to suggest some element of revenge and retaliation,” said Erroll G. Southers, director of Homegrown Violent Extremism Studies at the University of Southern California and a former FBI agent.
“What it says to me, it’s someone who’s familiar with the facility, it’s someone who knew exactly what room they were going to go to, they knew exactly which way they needed to escape,” Southers said. “They’ve done their homework, they know what the response time in this jurisdiction.”
Terry Petit said his daughter works at the center, where social workers find jobs, housing, transportation and provide programs for people who have disabilities such as autism, cerebral palsy and epilepsy. He got a text from her saying she was hiding in the building after hearing gunshots.
Petit choked back tears as he read the texts for reporters outside the center. He said she wrote: “People shot. In the office waiting for cops. Pray for us. I am locked in an office.”