San Bernardino shooting updates: Portraits of the victims as a community mourns

Sarah Wire has been closely following the California delegation's response to the shootings. First she detailed how Rep. Pete Aguilar learned about the tragedy back home.

Today, Wire found many of California's Democrats visibly angry over what they feel is a pattern of mass shootings that Congress does nothing about.

From the story:

One California member of Congress will no longer stand on the House floor to pay tribute to mass shooting victims. The day after the horrific attack in San Bernardino, Rep. Jackie Speier says she'll boycott the congressional chamber or stay seated instead.

“I’m not going to stand up for a moment of silence again and then watch us do nothing. It’s hypocritical and it speaks to our impotence that we think that it’s good enough to just take out one minute and pray for the lives,” the Hillsborough Democrat said. “The families of those who have died don’t want our one minute of silence. They want some assurance that this kind of conduct is not going to be sanctioned in this country moving forward.

“I’ve had it. I have had it with inaction. I’ve had it with the sense that it’s OK that we not act,” Speier said, pounding her hand against her leg as she spoke. Speier was shot five times while on a congressional fact-finding mission into the People's Temple in Jonestown in 1978.

A Republican state lawmaker minced no words responding to Speier's decision on Twitter.

— Christina Bellantoni

Aurora and James Godoy, high school sweethearts, dated for about eight years before eloping in 2012. They bought a home in San Jacinto, and she gave birth to their son, Alexander, who will turn 2 in January.

Speaking by telephone as his son fussed in the background, James Godoy praised his late wife as a devoted mother.

On Thursday afternoon, following a difficult, daylong wait, authorities informed James Godoy of his wife's death.

"Disbelief is the word," he said. "Disbelief."

— Matt Hamilton

Most victims of mass shootings find themselves unexpectedly under siege -- at work, at school, at a concert, watching a movie, at home.

A personal defense trainer in Thousand Oaks has a few suggestions people can use to prepare and give themselves a better chance of surviving an attack.

1. Assess your environment before there's any sign of danger.

2. Always be vigilant, and trust your gut.

3. If danger arises, run to safety first; call loved ones later.

For more details, click "read more" below.

— Michelle Maltais

Hundreds of people filed into San Bernardino's San Manuel Stadium for one of several vigils held tonight to honor the victims of Wednesday's attack and show support for the community. Some wiped away tears as they held candles. Others sat with their arms wrapped around each other.

There were prayers for peace and praise for the police officers and firefighters who responded to the attack. "SB Strong" flashed on the video board in the outfield.

The mood was somber but touched with a defiant optimism. City officials drew applause when they spoke of San Bernardino's resilience.

"Though we are a bankrupt city, and now we are a terrorized city, we will not be beaten," City Atty. Gary Saenz said.

As families left the stadium and headed home, many placed votive candles below two wreaths of red and white flowers that were just outside the stands.

People spoke quietly as they walked to their cars, still shocked by the scale of the tragedy.

-- Soumya Karlamangla and Kate Mather

Sixteen rings of a bell marked the beginning of the prayer service and vigil at St. Paul's United Methodist Church in San Bernardino tonight -- one chime for each life lost, including those of the shooters.

A somber tone marked the prayer, but the sermons, delivered by about a dozen speakers from churches throughout the county, emphasized the importance of finding light in seemingly endless darkness.

The shooting wasn't San Bernardino's first brush with pain and loss, they said: It is only the latest burden on a struggling town. Homelessness, poverty and crime have beset the streets for years.

"The city looks like a dark valley and crooked road that knows no mercy," the Rev. Cheol Kwak said, but the community is "resilient."

The church set aside 14 Bibles for parishioners to sign. They will be delivered to the victims' families.

— Sarah Parvini

Shannon Johnson lived in the Koreatown neighborhood of Los Angeles, rising before dawn every morning to commute to his job as a health inspector for San Bernardino County, according to a statement by Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti.

He was an ideal inspector, according to Susan Wangeman, former general manager at a Baker's Drive-Thru location where Johnson reviewed health conditions.

"When you see a health inspector, nine times out of 10 you say 'Oh my god,'" Wangeman said. "I never felt like that when he came."

"He was great at his job," she said. "Awesomely great at his job and he seemed like he truly liked it."

Wangeman said Johnson regularly dined at the Foothill Boulevard restaurant, where he routinely ordered two burritos, fries and a big Coke.

He lived with his girlfriend, Mandy Pfifer, a longtime member of Garcetti's Crisis Response Team, according to the statement.

"We offer our full support to Mandy in this unimaginably difficult time, and I send my deepest condolences to Shannon's family and all who are grieving loved ones in the aftermath of this senseless tragedy," Garcetti said.

— Christine Mai-Duc and Ben Welsh

Tin Nguyen and her boyfriend, San Trinh, had planned to get engaged in the next year and to marry in 2017. The day before she was killed the couple toasted his 32nd birthday at a shabu-shabu restaurant.

"I work day in, day out, saving money. I intended to buy her a new house. We would move her mom in to live with us. We talked about everything -- our marriage, how many kids we wanted to have," the mechanical engineer from Westminster said. "If I could tell people anything from this experience, I'd say: 'Whatever you're planning, don't push it off. Get it done.'"

— Anh Do

The chaotic first moments of the San Bernardino shooting were captured in radio chatter as reports of a gunman in black clothing came in from witnesses.

Times staff writer Joseph Serna listened to more than 2 ½ hours of dispatch chatter. Here are highlights from the initial response:

Dispatchers tell officers en route to the Inland Regional Center that the suspect is in black clothing.

Officers arriving on the campus report a tense scene.

Gunmen are reported fleeing in a black SUV as officers make it into the facility.

"All of us are affected by this," San Bernardino resident Sandy Bonilla says.

1. Assure them that they are safe.

2. Guide them through the news.

3. Use age-appropriate language.

4. Know that they are watching you.

5. Have a family plan.

6. Maintain a routine.

7. Watch them over time.

For more details, click "read more" below.

— Sonali Kohli

Umer Ahmed, 38, a civil engineer from Cerritos, attended a vigil tonight at the Baitul Hameed Mosque in Chino wearing a black and white scarf -- black to absorb hate, white to reflect peace, he said.

When news of Wednesday's mass shooting broke, he said, he didn't worry about what the shooter's faith was. He was just scared for his family and friends nearby.

"We live in the United States," he said. "We follow the laws. As a nation we are one, and no one can come between us."

He emphasized that Islam is a peaceful religion, and said he wishes people would ask questions about it before making assumptions.

"Islam doesn't allow any kind of killing," Ahmed said. "The Koran clearly says that killing one person is killing all of humanity."

— Hailey Branson-Potts

To her family, Yvette Velasco embodied intelligence and ambition.

One of Robert and Marie Velasco's four daughters, the 27-year-old was "full of life and loved by all who knew her," according to a statement issued by her family.

"We are devastated about what happened," the family said, "and are still processing this nightmare."

— Louis Sahagun and Matt Hamilton

Academics, journalists, congressional researchers and Internet commentators now regularly check data to determine exactly how often mass shootings occur in a country that averages more than 10,000 gun homicides every year.

It's a tough and surprisingly subjective job. Counts differ depending on who is collecting the data, and how they define mass shooting.

According to a Congressional Research Service analysis released in July, the U.S. from 1999 to 2013 averaged 21 mass shootings a year in which four or more people were shot and killed.

More than 1,500 people were killed in those shootings, with the totals fluctuating from year to year with no clear trend up or down, according to the analysis.

— Matt Pearce

Federal investigators were attempting to interview three men who had phone contact with Syed Rizwan Farook.

One of them was Roshan Abbassi, an assistant imam at the Dal-Al-Aloom Al-Islamiyah of America mosque in San Bernardino, where Farook regularly worshiped until about two years ago. Abbassi said he barely knew Farook, shared occasional hellos and goodbyes with him after prayers, and didn’t know his wife at all.

Abbassi said he was confronted at gunpoint while at home Wednesday night by three law enforcement officers and was told they had phone records showing Abbassi had been in contact with Farook at least 36 times.

“But each of those could have been for only 10 seconds,” Abbassi told The Times in an interview Thursday afternoon.

After searching him to make sure he was unarmed, the officers holstered their weapons and questioned him for about an hour, Abbassi said. He was not arrested or told he would be charged with a crime, Abbassi said.

Abbassi said he is an American citizen, but was not born in the U.S. His parents brought him to this country when he was younger than 2 years old. Asked where his parents came from, he said, “I prefer to keep that private.”

“We are all against terrorism,” Abbassi said. “We all want peace.”

— Jack Dolan

Lt. Mike Madden, an administrative commander for the San Bernardino Police Department, typically works at a desk overseeing dispatchers.

But on Wednesday morning, Madden was on his way to lunch when calls began flooding in about an active shooter less than a mile away.

"I could hear it in our dispatcher's voice, that this was actually happening," Madden told reporters Thursday night.

Madden pulled into the complex, just south of the building where the shooters had unleashed a spray of bullets. A couple of minutes later, Madden and three other officers assembled to make their way around the building.

"As we entered the conference room, the situation was surreal," Madden said. The smell of fresh gunpowder hung in the air, the fire alarms were blaring and water rained down from sprinklers as victims screamed and moaned in pain, he recalled.

"It was unspeakable, the carnage that we were seeing, the number of people who were injured and unfortunately already dead and the pure panic of those individuals that were still in need of help."

The tables were adorned with Christmas decorations, the officer said, and a Christmas tree sat on one side. "It just seemed so senseless," Madden said, tears welling up in his eyes.

— Christine Mai-Duc

A family member called Isaac Amanios "an amazing father, brother, an amazing everything."

In a brief conversation with a reporter, the woman, who asked not to be named, said Amanios was survived by his wife and three adult children. He worked for the county health department, according to the woman.

On Twitter, Nat Berhe, safety for the New York Giants, said Amanios was his cousin and "a great human being."

— Ben Poston

Yearbook photos from La Sierra High School in Riverside show Syed Rizwan Farook during his sophomore and junior years.

Farook, who used his middle name, Rizwan, in school, was listed in the yearbooks as a member of the high school's Muslim club. The yearbooks were provided to The Times by a neighbor who lives near his childhood home.

— Zahira Torres

In times of tragedy and trauma, even well-intended words can cut deep. Here's a way to approach conversations, with a focus on supporting the people who need it most and having the right people support you.

"I love hanging out with my friends and I love my blooming career in public and environmental health," Sierra Clayborn wrote on her Facebook page, where her profile photo still has the red, white and blue filter honoring victims of last month's terrorist attacks in Paris. "I am dedicated to enjoying my new life, that God so graciously gave me, so I thank Him… and live life to the fullest. I love my life."

"I love you more than you ever knew," her sister Tamishia wrote Thursday morning in a Facebook post. "You were taken too soon. My heart is broken. I am completely devastated."

— Laura J. Nelson and Louis Sahagun

Bennetta Betbadal fled to America with her family to "escape Islamic extremism and the persecution of Christians that follow Iranian Revolution."

She was 18 at the time, according to a statement related by her family. Her first stop was New York but she eventually moved to California, where she met and married Arlen Vedehyou, a police officer. They have three children.

"It is the ultimate irony that her life would be stolen from her," the family said in their statement, "by what appears to be the same type of extremism that she fled so many years ago."

— Matt Hamilton

In Washington today, Senate Republicans blocked several efforts by Democrats to add gun-control provisions to a budget measure.

And White House officials are seeking a way to use executive authority to close the so-called gun show loophole that allows thousands of people to buy firearms each year without a background check, but complicated legal issues have slowed the process.

The San Bernardino church is holding a prayer vigil.

One reverend calls shootings like the one in San Bernardino an "illness which has a grip on our nation." Another says: "We can all sense the fear, the frustration, the anger, the pain and the sorrow. Imagine this happening in our backyard."

— Sarah Parvini

Police believe that 75 to 80 people were in the conference room of the Inland Regional Center when the shooting began.

San Bernardino Police Chief Jarrod Burguan said 91 people had been invited to the gathering, which began as a morning training session and transitioned into a holiday party.

Of the 14 people who were killed, Burguan said, 12 were county employees. Eighteen of the 21 injured were also county workers.

— Christine Mai-Duc

Robert Adams and his wife grew up in the Inland Empire and were high school sweethearts, family friend Jenni Kosse said. He adored their 20-month-old daughter, Savannah.

Adams, of Yucaipa, was an environmental health specialist with San Bernardino County; he would inspect pools and food facilities during the construction phase.

Adams -- who wore bright ties and his beard in a goatee -- also spent time helping his parents, who donate doves to Inland Empire families who have lost a loved one, Kosse said. They give them away for free, she said, so families can release them at ceremonies.

— Marisa Gerber

Help us tell the story of the lives of the 14 victims of the San Bernardino shooting. Do you have a favorite memory, photo or something to share about your friend or family member? Please tell us.

Syed Rizwan Farook's foreign travel didn't raise the usual alarm bells with federal agencies because he didn't spend several months overseas or travel to places where he could have spent a long time in a jihadist training camp, a senior law enforcement official said.

Farook traveled to Saudi Arabia in 2013 during the hajj pilgrimage to Mecca and again in July 2014 for nine days to pick up Tashfeen Malik and bring her to the U.S. on a K-1 fiancee visa. Neither trip lasted very long, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal assessments.

The official has seen no record of Farook traveling to Pakistan, as the assistant director for the FBI's Los Angeles field office announced earlier today.

Malik applied for lawful permanent residency Sept. 30, 2014. After a background check by the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security, she received her permanent resident green card in July.

— Brian Bennett

Investigators are still trying to identify the motive behind the shooting rampage in San Bernardino on Wednesday, and whether the two assailants had any links to terrorism.

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Burbank), the ranking minority member of the House Intelligence Committee who has been briefed on the investigation, said Thursday that federal agents have yet to turn up evidence that Farook was "radicalized."

Schiff said the FBI and other federal investigators are "looking at everyone they can find that these two were in contact with."

“They’re not ready to draw conclusions, but looking at anyone they were involved with that could shed light on what their motivations were,” Schiff said. “The FBI is chasing down leads foreign and domestic, and looking for any evidence of radicalization and external actors” who might have encouraged or directed the attack from abroad.

Earlier in the day, Schiff told the Los Angeles Times that the Islamic State group has applauded the attack online, but the terror group has not claimed responsibility for the shooting so far.

Investigators have said they believe the shooting required preparation, even if the precise timing may have been spurred by an altercation at a holiday party at the Inland Regional Center.

— Richard Serrano and Brian Bennett

Slain suspected gunman Syed Rizwan Farook was in touch with a small number of suspected extremists, a federal government official has told the Los Angeles Times.

There are also indications the 28-year-old gunman communicated with at least one person who is being monitored as a potential terrorism suspect, the official said.

Farook's connection to the potential terrorism suspect may only be tangential, the official said, but the link suggests there may be a "deeper terror matrix" behind the San Bernardino shootings.

Federal investigators were attempting to interview three men who "were in phone contact" with Farook and his wife in the days leading up to the shooting rampage, a government official said.

"They were associates and in contact with the shooters,” said the official, who requested anonymity because the investigation was ongoing.

It was not clear whether the three men were involved in the shooting.

— Richard Serrano

The San Bernardino County coroner's office has released the names of all 14 victims killed in Wednesday's shooting.

They are:

-- Shannon Johnson , 45, Los Angeles

-- Bennetta Bet-Badal , 46, Rialto

-- Aurora Godoy , 26, San Jacinto

-- Isaac Amanios , 60, Fontana

-- Larry (Daniel) Kaufman , 42, Rialto

-- Harry Bowman , 46, Upland

-- Yvette Velasco , 27, Fontana

-- Sierra Clayborn , 27, Moreno Valley

-- Robert Adams , 40, Yucaipa

-- Nicholas Thalasinos , 52, Colton

-- Tin Nguyen , 31, Santa Ana

-- Juan Espinoza , 50, Highland

-- Damian Meins , 58, Riverside

-- Michael Wetzel , 37, Lake Arrowhead

A man was seen running from the gun battle on East San Bernardino Avenue on Wednesday and was detained. Police later determined that the man was not a suspect.

— Rong-Gong Lin II

Twenty-four hours after he was shot three times, Kevin Ortiz was “doing very well except that he’s emotional over the shock over what happened,” his father said Thursday.

“Kevin keeps asking when he is going to wake up from this nightmare,” Carlos Ortiz said in an interview at Arrowhead Regional Medical Center.

Kevin Ortiz had been shot twice in the leg and once in the shoulder. Minutes later, the 24-year-old called his wife of two weeks and his father to tell them he was alive.

— Louis Sahagun

Warning that Congress has become “complicit” in gun violence with its inaction, Senate Democrats forced votes Thursday on measures to curb gun sales, which failed amid mostly Republican opposition.

One proposal from Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) would have added suspected terrorists to the list of individuals blocked from buying firearms. Another that would have closed the so-called gun show loophole that allows buyers to escape background checks won broader GOP support, but not enough to pass.

“How can we live with ourselves, for failing to do the things we know will reduce gun violence?” said Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.).

“We are complicit through our inaction,” he said. “It is despicable. For far too long we have done nothing, even as gun violence shakes our nation to its core.”

Passage was a long-shot in the face of opposition from the gun lobby, including the National Rifle Assn., which continues to hold sway over lawmakers.

The last major effort in Congress, after the 2012 mass shooting of elementary school children in Newtown, Conn., failed to change gun laws, as did the 2011 shooting of then-Rep. Gabrielle Giffords as she met with constituents outside a Tuscon grocery store.

Republicans offered alternatives Thursday that Democrats rejected as weak, and some senators objected to tampering with the broader GOP package to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

But mostly GOP leaders, including House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.), have said the focus should be on mental health reforms.

Democratic Sen. Christopher S. Murphy of Connecticut said that while prayers and good wishes like those he received in the aftermath of the Newtown school shooting are appreciated, Thursday’s votes were intended to show Americans there are “sane people” in Washington who know that gun laws must change.

“Members of Congress don’t get paid to send out sympathy tweets. Members of Congress get paid to change policy,” Murphy said. “In this Congress, we’re not even trying, we’re not even making an attempt, and that’s offensive.”

— Lisa Mascaro

Gov. Jerry Brown had been scheduled to leave for Paris for the climate talks , but will head south first, his top aide tweeted.

This evening Brown will be briefed by local, state and federal law enforcement and then speak to the press.

— Christina Bellantoni

The fact that more than one assailant appeared to have taken part in the massacre told law enforcement officials that something unusual was at play.

In the scores of mass shootings that have occurred in the U.S. over the last 15 years, nearly all of them have involved an attacker acting alone.

And the Inland Regional Center makes for a different kind of target.

"The target is a very soft target. The whole thing seems strange," said Ron Avi Astor, a behavioral health professor and mass shooting expert at USC. "What meaning does the place have and why kill so many people there?

"There's more to this story than what we know right now," Astor said.

— Joel Rubin and Joseph Serna

READ MORE >>

For Nat Berhe, a fifth-round draft pick for the Giants in 2014, Wednesday's mass shooting at first seemed like a narrow miss for his family.

Berhe, who was born in Fontana and graduated from Colton High School, tweeted an image hours after the attack showing how close his parents' office was to the scene of the shooting.

Then today he got terrible news.

— Chuck Schilken

California Department of Motor Vehicles officials have released a driver's license photo of Syed Rizwan Farook. Farook's current license was issued in 2013, according to DMV officials. Officials did not say if the image was taken then or was reused from an earlier license.

Such photos become a public record after someone's death and can be released by the state following confirmation of the death by a local coroner.

— Megan Garvey

A police chaplain and three women, including a victim's fiancee, took bouquets of flowers to the area near the Inland Regional Center on Thursday.

Tears streamed from beneath one woman's sunglasses.

"It was her fiance. He is one of the victims," said Steve Ballinger, chaplain with the Billy Graham rapid response team who works with Riverside police.

The woman didn't want to talk and began to sob as she walked away.

— Richard Winton

In an email sent to employees, Juan C. Perez, director of the Riverside County Transportation & Land Management Agency, called Damian Meins a "bright light" that had been "extinguished from our world in a most tragic way."

Perez said Meins had spent 28 years working for Riverside County and had recently returned to a position with the Environmental Health Department after retiring in 2010. Meins, he said, also worked as a physical education teacher at St. Catherine's School in Riverside, where he played Santa for the children.

"I will always remember Damian as a caring, jovial man with a warm smile and a hearty laugh," Perez wrote.

— Megan Garvey

As they arrived at school Thursday morning, teachers in San Bernardino received an email from district headquarters -- a tip sheet to guide the conversations that they’d surely have with their students the day after 14 people died and 21 were injured in a mass shooting in their city.

The guidelines encouraged teachers to stick to the facts and to reassure students that they were safe at school and that the school district and school police were committed to keeping them safe. The email also included advice from the National Assn. of School Psychologists on talking to children about violence.

The district has a crisis team to support students and staff in some schools and at the district headquarters, said Laura Strachan, director of alternative programs for the San Bernardino City Unified School District.

The crisis team is trained to deal with situations like this one, and accompanies and observes school police during live-shooter trainings.

“We have had other events where there’d be, say, a student’s family involved in a shooting where we would deploy [the crisis team],” Strachan said. “But nothing of this scope.”

— Sonali Kohli

When Mahmoud Tarifi learned the name of a suspect in Wednesday’s San Bernardino shooting, his heart sank. He said he knew the man may have been Muslim.

After officials announced that Syed Farook was a suspect, members of the faith’s community shared their sense of grief and concern.

Tarifi, a leader at the Islamic Center of Claremont, said American Muslims are accustomed to being targeted and scapegoated whenever violent Islamic extremists commit attacks.

“Every Muslim worries about being victimized,” he said. “It&rsdquo;s how we felt after 9/11 and after the Paris attacks.“

— Sarah Parvini, Kate Linthicum and Taylor Goldenstein

The Times' Dexter Thomas writes that the next time he tells someone where he's from, they won't say: "Where is that?" They might say: "I'm sorry."

Fourteen people shot dead and 21 wounded in a mass shooting in an already struggling town will do that.

Read more: Please do politicize my hometown's tragedy

The shootings in San Bernardino lit up social media in the Arab world, where some denounced the shooters and others jumped to the conclusion that Islamic State played some role, although no group has claimed responsibility and the motive was not immediately clear.

"Apparently ISIS is behind the attack,” @Tammam1975 tweeted in Arabic.

@A_Al3azmi was among a number of people who saw a conspiracy, in his case related to the religious background of the suspects. “Of course the suspect always has to be Muslim, so they can say that it is a terrorist act,” he tweeted.

Many people expressed fear of a Western backlash against Muslims as a result of the attack. “If the attacker was Christian, would they still accuse all Christians of being terrorists and shut down their churches like what happens with Muslims?” asked Twitter user @Y_Salem.

And Egyptian Nobel laureate Mohamed ElBaradei warned of the consequences of any such backlash. “Should 1.5 bn Muslims be blamed or targeted for terror, we will have disastrous schism. Insulate extremists but don't throw baby w/bathwater.

—Amro Hassan for The Times

Ryan Reyes, 32, received a text message Wednesday from his sister: "Hey Ry does Daniel work at the Regional Center in Sb? Check the news."

Reyes repeatedly called Daniel Kaufman, his boyfriend of three years who ran a coffee shop at the Inland Regional Center, but kept getting sent to voicemail.

"Call me ASAP!" he texted. There was no reply.

The next 22 hours were a slow torture, as Reyes and his family received conflicting reports about Kaufman's fate. In the end, they learned that Kaufman was among the 14 killed.

— Alan Zarembo

READ MORE >>

Times staff writer Dexter Thomas attended dawn prayers at the Riverside mosque where shooting suspect Syed Rizwan Farook was once a regular worshiper.

Federal investigators are attempting to interview three men who "were in phone contact" with suspects Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik in the days leading up to the shooting rampage, a government official said.

"They were associates and in contact with the shooters,” said the official, who requested anonymity because of the delicacy of the matter.

It was not clear if the three men were involved in the shooting in any way.

— Richard Serrano and James Queally

Wetzel, a father of six, attended the Church of the Woods in Lake Arrowhead, and was killed in the shooting according to a post on the church's website. A photo shared there showed Wetzel standing with his wife and children, who range in age from mid-teens to an infant in his wife's arms. Wetzel's age was not immediately available.

"Please pray. My husband was in a meeting and a shooter came in. There are multiple people dead/shot. I can't get a hold of him," Wetzel's wife was quoted as writing to friends shortly after the shooting, according to a fundraising page for the family.

Wetzel was a supervising environmental health specialist with San Bernardino County.

Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) took to the Senate floor Thursday morning to tell colleagues her heart is broken over the shooting in San Bernardino.

“When I woke up this morning, I’d hoped that yesterday's tragedy in San Bernardino was just an unimaginable nightmare,” she said.

Congress needs to act to create a national policy that limits who can have military-style weapons and that keeps people on the no-fly list from purchasing weapons, she said.

“Once you know something is happening and you can do something about it and you don't do something about it, you're liable. Maybe not in a legal sense. In the moral sense,” she said.

— Sarah D. Wire

Police said that they believe Syed Farook and Tashfeen Malik were the only people directly involved in the shooting, but said the investigation is continuing.

On Thursday morning, FBI agents and S.W.A.T. officers raided a condominium in Corona, where they led away one man in handcuffs, neighbors said.

“FBI agents with bullhorns showed up at 5 a.m.,” said Lorraine Otto, who lives next door to the home on Forum Way. “They kept saying, ‘This is the FBI. Open the door. If you don’t open the door, we’ll break it open.'”

— James Queally

Syed Rizwan Farook graduated from Cal State San Bernardino in 2010 with a bachelor’s degree in environmental health, according to the college.

He was a graduate student in the environmental engineering program at Cal State Fullerton for one semester in 2014. Cal State Fullerton spokeswoman Paula Selleck said there is no indication of why Farook left the program.

“We don’t know the reason there would be to have attended just one semester,” Selleck said. “Students often change their minds, but we don’t know in this case what that reason was.”

— Carla Rivera

A 52-year-old Colton resident was among the 14 victims killed in the San Bernardino shooting rampage, according to a Facebook post by his wife.

“My husband, Nicholas Thalasinos, was killed in the shooting,” wrote Jennifer Thalasinos, a second-grade teacher for Colton Joint Unified School District, early Thursday. She posted a photo of them with their arms around each other.

Just four days earlier, Nicholas Thalasinos had phoned a friend to tell him he was feeling OK after having a growth removed from his head.

“He had just healed from one thing and then this happened,” said Ed Beck, whose wife once worked with Thalasinos for the Cape May County Department of Health in New Jersey.

Thalasinos had worked as a health inspector and took a similar job in California about a decade ago after meeting Jennifer, Beck said.

—Corina Knoll and Veronica Rocha

During a Thursday campaign stop at a factory in Nashua, N.H., Hillary Clinton weighed in on the possibility that the San Bernardino shooting could be tied to terrorism.

"We don't know the reason or motive yet behind what happened in San Bernardino yesterday in California. But I just was told before coming in that the president says we can't rule out terrorism," she said, according to reporters traveling with the Democratic presidential hopeful.

"So we do have to take this seriously, and we have to get the rest of the world to join with us," Clinton added.

Clinton also offered a condemnation of "too many disagreements, too much division, and people are being kind of negative."

"Look, we're always going to have differences. We're Americans, that's part of who we are," she said. "But there's got to be a way to end some of the hot rhetoric and the negative attitudes that people are spewing forth. Because whether it's an election or whether it's a news program or whatever might be going on, we should roll up our sleeves and work together and solve our problems. And so I want to do everything I can to find common ground to bring people together."

— Christina Bellantoni

California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who received a classified FBI briefing on the San Bernardino shooting in her role as ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, was left questioning the role of the woman suspect, Tashfeen Malik.

“You and I know, that women, we wouldn’t leave a 6-month-old -- our baby -- to do this, to don tactical gear to go in and kill a bunch of people,” Feinstein told reporters on Capitol Hill after Democrats introduced bills intended to stem gun violence for a Thursday vote.

“It’s not something a woman would easily do. So it’s going to be very interesting for me to see what her background was, what level of animus she had, because she had to have had a considerable level.”

“This was his grievance,” she added, referring to Syed Farook, Malik's.

“A woman is a woman. And her child has to be of maximum importance to her.”

— Lisa Mascaro

The two suspects in the San Bernardino shooting used two assault rifles and two semi-automatic handguns in the attack on the party, all of which were purchased legally, according to the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

A federal law enforcement source told The Times that Syed Farook and Tashfeen Malik bought the guns at Annie's Get Your Gun, a firearms retailer in nearby Corona that advertises itself as a "family-friendly gun store."

A person who identified herself as the owner denied that the store sold the weapons to the suspects.

— James Queally and Richard A. Serrano

A federal law enforcement source told The Times that although investigators have yet to establish a clear motive in the shooting, they are leaning toward a possible “combination of terrorism and workplace” motivation.

“We’re very involved in terms of trying to see if the motive was something inspired by a terrorist organization or directed by a terrorist organization, or whether [Syed Farook] was self-radicalized,” the source, who requested anonymity because the investigation is ongoing, said.

Police recovered additional firearms and explosive materials in the couple's rented Redlands home. Investigators believe the couple had a familiarity with weapons and military-style tactics.

“We want to know how they acquired that,” the source said.

The suspects were not known to federal investigators prior to the attack, the source said.

— Richard Serrano

San Bernardino Police Department Chief Jarrod Burguan told reporters:

— The number of wounded has risen to 21 people. The number of dead remains at 14.

— Authorities believe the suspects fired 65 to 75 rifle rounds at and in the Inland Regional Center.

— Authorities found three pipe bombs attached together and equipped with a remote control. The device apparently failed to detonate. Four high-capacity rifle magazines were also left behind at the scene.

— The suspects wore black tactical gear. They were not wearing ballistic or bulletproof vests.

— The suspects had 1,600 rifle and 9-millimeter rounds with them during final pursuit with police.

— Twenty-three officers from seven agencies were involved in the final shootout, and officers fired 380 rounds at suspects. Suspects fired 76 rounds at officers.

— Twelve pipe bombs, 2,000 9-millimeter rounds and 2,500 .223 rounds were found at a home the suspects were renting in Redlands. Also found were “hundreds of tools, many of which could be used to construct IEDs or pipe bombs.”

— All four firearms used in the shooting appear to be purchased legally and registered.

— There is currently no credible information about any other immediate threat.

— The suspects did not have criminal records that authorities are aware of.

— San Bernardino County Sheriff John McMahon said all “non-essential” county offices will be closed Thursday and Friday.

— Stephen Ceasar and James Queally

In his younger days, San Bernardino shooting suspect Syed Rizwan Farook endured a turbulent home life, according to court records.

In 2006 divorce filings, his mother detailed a violent marital history in which her children often had to intervene.

Rafia Farook said her husband of 24 years was physically and verbally abusive and was “negligent and an alcoholic,” according to documents filed in Riverside County Superior Court. Her husband, she said, forced her and three of her children to move out. They moved into an Irvine residence.

Later, in multiple requests for domestic-violence protection, Rafia Farook detailed the maltreatment she said she encountered and that her children witnessed: Her husband had once drunkenly dropped a TV on her. Another time, he pushed her toward a car. After a drunken slumber, he shouted expletives and threw dishes in the kitchen.

“Inside the house he tried to hit me. My daughter came in between to save me,” she said about one incident. Police were not called to the home, she said.

“He is always mad,” she said. “Screaming on me, shouting at my kids for no reason. … My son came in between to save me.”

It was unclear if she was referring to Syed Rizwan Farook, who at the time was 19 and living with her, according to documents.

— Matt Hamilton

By all accounts, Wednesday should have been a day of celebration for Julie Swann-Paez. The inspector with the San Bernardino County Department of Health walked into the Christmas party at the Inland Regional Center ready to receive an Employee of the Year award and spend time with her colleagues.

But the morning quickly went south. Shooters stormed into the room, opening fire on Swann-Paez and her co-workers. She was hit at least twice, according to her children.

"Love you guys," she said in a group text message with her family. "Was shot."

Attached to the message, sent around 11:20 a.m., was a photo of her face as she lay on the floor.

"I thought she was dead," said her son Nick Paez, 26, as he sat in his parents' home with his younger brother and sister.

At first, Nick Paez said, his father couldn't figure out which hospital Julie was taken to. He searched different facilities. An officer at Arrowhead Regional Medical Center said she wasn't there. Finally, he said, he made it to Loma Linda University Medical Center, where he learned she had been shot once in the upper thigh and once in the abdomen and needed surgery.

A bullet shattered her pelvis, her children said.

The family waited for hours to see her, but she was in a post-surgery recovery room, Nick Paez said. Families aren't usually allowed in, he said, but doctors let them into the room for about five minutes around 10 p.m.

"They think it's your co-worker," Paez remembered telling his mother about one of the suspected shooters.

"That doesn't make sense," she replied. "They were congratulating him for having a baby."

— Sarah Parvini

Donald Bell, a computer programmer who works from his Redlands home, had stepped out to get his mail Wednesday afternoon when he saw the police car park in the middle of the street, its lights flashing.

An officer carrying a rifle got out and began diverting traffic — unusual for the neighborhood where Bell has lived for more than three decades. He wondered if it was connected to the shooting earlier in the day in San Bernardino.

Then he looked down the street and saw more police cars, gun-carrying officers and an armored vehicle parked perpendicular to the curb.

"Then I knew something big was happening," Bell said.

He stood a few houses down from the brown, two-story townhouse and watched as authorities swarmed Center Street. Bell said he heard authorities occasionally yell into a loudspeaker:

"This is the FBI. Apartment 53, come to the door."

There was never any response, he said.

Ultimately, Bell said, the armored vehicle drove over the curb and "very slowly and methodically" broke through the home's front door with a battering ram attached to the front of the vehicle. It also smashed a front window, tearing away the frame as the vehicle backed up.

Bell said he went back to his apartment — across the street, three buildings down from the town house — for the night.

— Kate Mather

"It is possible" that the deadly shooting in San Bernardino "was terrorist-related, but we don't know," President Obama said Thursday morning.

Speaking from the Oval Office after a briefing from FBI Director James Comey, Obama emphasized the need to "get the facts" before making a judgment about the case.

It is "possible this was workplace-related," he said.

"At this stage, we do not yet know why this terrible event occurred," he said.

But, he added, "right now, it's just too easy" for people who are determined to kill others to "get access to weapons."

— David Lauter

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The female suspect in the deadly shooting rampage allegedly carried out with her husband, Syed Farook, was Pakistani, a federal source confirmed. Farook returned to the U.S. with Malik, who he met online, after traveling to Saudi Arabia, though little more is known about her background.

— Richard Winton

Reeling from the mass shooting in San Bernardino, Democrats will try to force the Senate to vote Thursday on legislation to stem gun violence.

The specific measures are still being considered, but they would be proposed as amendments to a GOP package to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

Passage of any effort to limit access to firearms appears unlikely, as Congress has been unable to build support for toughening the nation's gun-control laws in the face of opposition from the Nation Rifle Assn. Even in the aftermath of the mass shooting of elementary schoolchildren at Newtown, Conn., a measure to beef up laws failed.

Other measures, including one to provide funding for federal health officials to study gun violence, may find broader support in Congress.

Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic leader, said after Wednesday's shooting in California that gun violence has become a "cancer" on the nation.

"We are better than this," Reid said. "This madness must stop."

— Lisa Mascaro

-- The investigation at a house in Redlands continues, with more than two dozen FBI agents combing the home and its garage, according to federal officials. The home is a brown, two-story townhouse nestled among a row of matching buildings with well-trimmed lawns along Center Street. A front window was broken and the porch light was on. FBI officials say it is likely the home will yield answers as to what motivated the shooting.

-- Dozens of federal agents and local police are scouring the mass shooting scene in the Inland Regional Center.

-- The scene where police shot the suspects remains blocked off and a smashed SUV is still in the middle of San Bernardino Avenue. Forensic experts are examining the scene.

— Richard Winton

Investigators "can't rule anything out" yet as they search for a motive for Wednesday's mass shooting in San Bernardino, Rep. Adam Schiff, the senior Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said Thursday.

It's "possible" that "some combination of motivation" involving both a workplace dispute and terrorism prompted the shooting, Schiff said in an interview with CNN. He had been briefed on the progress of the investigation earlier in the morning, he said.

The FBI and other federal agencies are "exploring" any possible "links to international terror," Schiff said, stressing that none have been found so far.

San Bernardino Mayor Carey Davis said Thursday morning that the federal and local police investigation into Wednesday’s shooting rampage remains “an active investigation.”

Speaking to CNN, as FBI, ATF and other federal law enforcement agencies assisted local officials, the mayor said that “we will leave it to the authorities to unravel the case; more will come out as time passes.”

Davis said that it was unclear whether the shooting was driven by international terrorism or was a case of workplace violence. But he stressed that he did not believe immediate new gun control measures were the answer to stop mass shootings.

“It’s not the gun that kills,” the mayor said. “It’s the shooter that kills.”

-- Richard Serrano

Conservatives offered condolences and praise for law enforcement, and liberals added calls for gun control.

"Praying for the victims, their families & the San Bernardino first responders in the wake of this tragic shooting," tweets Jeb Bush.

"Good luck to law enforcement and God bless," writes Donald Trump. "This is when our police are so appreciated!"

Hillary Clinton: "I refuse to accept this as normal. We must take action to stop gun violence now."

Bernie Sanders: "Mass shootings are becoming an almost-everyday occurrence in this country. This sickening and senseless gun violence must stop."

Last week, it was the lone shooter at the Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs, Colo. In October, it was students and teachers being gunned down at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Ore. So far in 2015, there have been more mass shootings — with four victims or more — than there have been days. The terrorist attack in Paris that killed 130 innocent people two weeks ago took more lives than any individual incident in this country, but, in addition to the death toll, the shock of the Paris massacre was that it was out of the ordinary for the French.

Their reaction was to declare war against Islamic State, the terrorist group that planned the attack. When will the United States declare war against the ceaseless shootings on home soil?

It is possible that a foreign villain will be discovered behind the San Bernardino slaughter, but it seems far more likely that the shooters were driven by personal motivations. One thing that they reportedly have in common with all the shooters in the U.S. is that they easily and, apparently, legally obtained firearms that, in other advanced countries, are available only to the military and police.

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As investigators worked overnight searching a Redlands home linked to the shooting rampage, nearby residents said they were stunned to learn that this sleepy town was connected to the tragedy.

Dozens of people gathered outside yellow police tape crisscrossing the neighborhood where two suspects fled from law enforcement Wednesday before a gun battle with police that led to their deaths in San Bernardino.

“All these shootings are too close to home,” a CVS worker in Redlands said just before midnight.

The neighborhood -- a mix of houses, condos and apartment buildings -- was marked by well-kept lawns and illuminated by porch lights.

One resident, Faith Sanders, said that although cars were broken into from time to time, the neighborhood felt safe. The 48-year-old has lived there for five years.

"I've been stuck to the TV all day," she said. "I was shocked because I was watching it there. Then, all of the sudden, it's here."

— Kate Mather

The suspects in the shooting rampage were a married couple who had dropped off their 6-month-old daughter with her grandmother before the attack, family representatives said.

Syed Rizwan Farook, 28, and Tashfeen Malik, 27, were married two years ago, according to Farook’s brother-in-law, Farhan Khan, shown above.

On Wednesday morning, Farook and his wife dropped their daughter off with Farook’s mother in Redlands, saying they had a doctor’s appointment, said Hussam Ayloush, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations’ Los Angeles office.

The grandmother grew worried when she heard of the shooting attack in San Bernardino, and “she started calling. No answer,” Ayloush said.

The family was worried the Farook and Malik were shot in the attacks, but then they started receiving calls from media outlets indicating that Farook was a person of interest.

Farook was born in Illinois, and his parents immigrated to the U.S. from Southeast Asia, Ayloush said.

— Laura J. Nelson