Ammo, electronic data, a blowtorch: FBI gathering a trove of evidence on shooters
Evidence markers dot the scene after the police shootout with Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik in San Bernardino.
Hours after the attack that left 14 people dead and 21 wounded, employees at the Riverside Magnum Range received a surprise visit.
Federal agents, who had reason to believe that one of the shooters in the rampage may have been a customer, took store security videos and financial records. The seizure of potential evidence was part of a global hunt for information in what the FBI declared Friday was a terrorism investigation.
As part of their inquiry, federal authorities want to figure out why Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik carried out their deadly mission Wednesday and whether they acted alone.
Investigators have been examining the couple’s travels abroad. They’ve conducted interviews with friends and family, and an imam at Farook’s mosque said authorities confronted him at gunpoint before questioning him Wednesday night. Farook’s mother was questioned for seven hours by the FBI, and his three siblings were interviewed Thursday for four hours, attorneys for the family said.
Agents asked about Farook’s social media activity, whether anyone in the family was affiliated with religious extremist sects and if his family had noticed any changes in behavior or attitude or clothing prior to the incident, said David Chesley, one of the attorneys.
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“There was no change in attitude, no change in dress, no change in behavior,” Chesley said. “I think it frustrated the FBI.”
Agents also asked the family whether there was a list of who attended the couple’s recent wedding in Saudi Arabia and a separate reception held in the U.S. Family members didn’t have lists for either, Chesley said.
Besides the interviews, the FBI has collected physical and electronic evidence, including a dozen pipe bombs and more than 4,500 rounds of ammunition in the couple’s Redlands home and an additional 1,600 rounds in their rental car.
From the couple’s townhouse, the FBI seized notebooks, a day planner, data storage devices, a blowtorch, audiocassettes and a pen with an SD memory card inside. Among the evidence were two receipts: one from a Chase bank for an undisclosed amount, and a receipt for a $600 withdrawal from Union Bank in Redlands.
What might prove to be the most telling is the couple’s digital footprint, said David Bowdich, assistant director in charge of the FBI in Los Angeles. On Friday, the FBI said it found two crushed cellphones in a trash can near the couple’s home, which they plan to examine.
“That evidence is incredibly important,” Bowdich said.
In addition, authorities will sift through a “large volume” of electronic evidence, which FBI Director James B. Comey said “these killers tried to destroy and tried to conceal from us.”
There is much about this that doesn’t make sense, even for us who do this for a living. That is why we have hundreds of people running down leads all over the world ... .
— FBI Director James B. Comey
“There is much about this that doesn’t make sense, even for us who do this for a living. That is why we have hundreds of people running down leads all over the world on this and spending tremendous amounts of time trying to understand the electronic records around these two killers,” Comey said.
Among many questions, the FBI is trying to figure out why the couple decided to attack the office party at the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino rather than a more high-profile target. One key question, said a law enforcement source, who was not authorized to speak publicly, “is if they had any weapons or terror training in Pakistan.”
Malik posted a note on Facebook pledging allegiance to Islamic State before the attack, authorities said, but the couple could have been inspired or driven by other groups, such as Al Qaeda. Officials cautioned that the new evidence could point to self-radicalization.
“Were they directed or self-radicalized?” the source said.
Noting the large arsenal of firearms and pipe bombs at the couple’s rented home, the source said, “were they planning some big, even bigger, thing when that happened?”
Times staff writers Brian Bennett and Nicole Santa Cruz contributed to this report.
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