First responders attend to people outside a Southern California social services center in San Bernardino, where one or more gunmen opened fire, shooting more than 25 people. (AP PHOTO)
SAN BERNARDINO, California — As many as three gunmen believed to be wearing military-style gear opened fire yesterday 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 Chief Jarrod Burguan identified the woman killed in the gun battle as 27-year-old Tashfeen Malik.
The other suspect was identified as 28-year-old Syed Farook. Relatives have said the two were married.
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.
Farook was an environmental specialist with the county health department who sometimes worked at the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino.
Burguan told reporters that Farook angrily left an office holiday party earlier Wednesday before returning with Malik.
Hussam Ayloush, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, says the couple left their baby with family Wednesday morning and never returned.
Thursday’s shooting was the nation’s deadliest mass shooting since the Newtown, Connecticut, attack in December 2012 that left 26 children and adults dead.
Police shed no light on the motive for the 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,” Burguan said, noting the attackers carried long guns — which can mean rifles or shotguns.
FBI agents and other law enforcement authorities converged on the center and searched room to room for the attackers, but they had apparently escaped.
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.
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