SAN BERNARDINO, Calif. — A man and a woman connected to a mass shooting that left 14 people dead and 17 wounded in San Bernardino were killed in a firefight with police officers after a car chase Wednesday, authorities said.
Two law enforcement sources identified one of the deceased suspects as Syed Farook, an American citizen.
Public records show a person named Syed R. Farook was employed by the San Bernardino County Health Department as an environmental health specialist, but it was not clear if that was the same person involved in the shooting.
The identity of the second person killed by police was not immediately known.
The alleged assailants, who were not immediately identified, were chased through San Bernardino by a crush of city and federal law enforcement officers around 3 p.m. PST.
Jarrod Burguan, San Bernardino police chief, said the suspects fled from a home in Redlands, southeast of San Bernardino, as police arrived to search the residence. Officers pursued them back into San Bernardino, leading to a shootout that left both suspects dead and one officer wounded. The officer is expected to survive. Chief Burguan said police recovered one device, but it turned out not to be an explosive.
A federal law enforcement source told the Los Angeles Times that the suspects hurled pipe bombs and other improvised explosive devices at police during the vehicle pursuit.
A third person was detained in the area where the pursuit ended. That person’s connection to the shooting was unknown.
Later, law enforcement officers in riot gear, a bomb squad unit and armored vehicles were calling for people to come to the front door of a home in Redlands where tips led authorities investigating the deadly shooting at a social services center.
It was unclear if anyone was inside the home.
The chase came just four hours after assailants opened fire at a holiday party at the Inland Regional Center, a social services office that aids people with developmental disabilities, in what authorities described as a carefully planned assault.
Investigators believe that one of the gunman had worked at the facility and recently had a dispute with fellow employees, according to law enforcement officials. A witness has told police that although the gunmen had their faces covered, one of them sounded and appeared very similar to an employee who had left the facility earlier in the day. “They had their appearances covered but a witness believed it had been someone who worked there,” the official said.
A senior federal official who is monitoring the case said investigators believe one of the shooters left the party after getting into an argument and returned with one or two armed companions. Local officials, at an evening news conference, said it was not clear if the people involved in the dispute were the same people involved in the shooting.
The shooters carried long guns and wore masks when they opened fire on a gathering of San Bernardino County health department employees around 11 a.m., according to witnesses and a county official.
In an exchange overheard on a law enforcement radio channel, an official can be heard telling a dispatcher Mr. Farook “was at the meeting,” referring to where the shooting took place, and then left “out of the blue.”
Mr. Farook “was acting nervous” and left the building approximately 20 minutes before the gunfire erupted, according to the recorded transmissions.
The shooting took place in a large conference room on the grounds of the Inland Regional Center. San Bernardino is about 60 miles east of Los Angeles.
A black sport-utility vehicle was seen fleeing from the office complex where the shooting occurred. Shortly before 3 p.m., police began pursuing a black SUV in San Bernardino.
“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,” said Erroll G. Southers, director of Homegrown Violent Extremism Studies at the University of Southern California and a former FBI agent. “They’ve done their homework, they know what the response time is in this jurisdiction.”
TV footage showed dozens of heavily armed police officers approaching the SUV, and officers in tactical gear could be seen stalking through a San Bernardino neighborhood.
A body could be seen lying in the street near the vehicle. Blood was pooling nearby, and a weapon was lying just feet away.
Meredith Davis, a spokeswoman with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, told KCAL9-TV the two suspects in the shootout were each armed with a long gun and a handgun.
They were wearing tactical-style clothing that was “loaded with magazines for a gunfight,” she said.
The motive for the attack remains unclear.
David Bowdich, assistant director of the FBI’s field office in Los Angeles, says one possibility is workplace violence and another is “terrorism.”
He did not elaborate.
For now, the local authorities will take the lead in the investigation, according to a senior law enforcement official. If the FBI determines that the individuals had ties to terrorism, the bureau will likely take over the inquiry, the official said. FBI agents and analysts in Washington and Los Angeles on Wednesday were combing through their files to determine whether the suspects had any ties to extremists abroad, law enforcement officials said. One official said that process had been slowed because the authorities were still trying to identify the bodies.
The shooting rippled across San Bernardino. All county schools, as well as city government buildings and courthouses, were on lockdown as police continued to search for the assailants. School officials, however, stressed that students had not been in danger and were dismissed on the regular schedule.
During a news briefing, Chief Burguan said information about the party being the focus of the attack was “preliminary” and declined to comment on a motive for the shooting.
“We have no information at this point to indicate that this is terrorist related, in the traditional sense that people may be thinking,” Chief Burguan said. “Obviously, at a minimum, we have a domestic terrorist-type situation that occurred here.”
It was the deadliest mass shooting in a nation all too familiar with them since 2012, when a man killed 26 children and adults at a school in Newtown, Conn.
Hundreds of people were on the grounds at the time of the attack, Chief Burguan said. Inland Regional Center officials said the conference room where the party was taking place can hold up to 200 people.
Chaos followed the gunfire. At first some at the scene mistook the shots and law enforcement response for a routine disaster drill.
Dorothy Vong, a nurse who was working in a nearby building, captured the tension in a video.
As law enforcement officials sprinted toward the scene, someone is heard saying, “Oh, that is scary.”
“They’re all geared up!” someone else says. “Rifles and everything!”
In the background, someone laughs. Then the reality set in.
Carlos Ortiz’s son Kevin Ortiz was shot twice in the leg and once in the shoulder.
The father, 54, was among a dozen people holding hands in a prayer circle outside Arrowhead Regional Medical Center where numerous victims were taken.
“Kevin called me immediately after he got shot and said ‘I’ve been shot three times dad. I’m in pain. Don’t worry. There’s a policeman with me.’”
Seconds later the phone call ended.
Kathy Hotetz, 37, waited anxiously outside of the same hospital for word of her sister Denise Peraza’s condition. Ms. Peraza, 27, was shot once.
“She’s alive,” Ms. Hotetz said. “That’s all I know. Not knowing any more than that is the scariest part.”
A short time later, Ms. Peraza called her sister from her hospital bed, and gave a grueling account of the attack.
She said the doors opened and two men dressed in all black wearing face masks entered with “big ol’ guns” and started shooting.
“Everyone dropped to the floor,” Ms. Peraza told her relatives. “The guys opened fired for 30 seconds, randomly, then paused to reload and began firing again.”
Ms. Peraza was hiding under a desk when she was struck in the lower back. After the attackers left, the scene became silent for about five minutes. Then the doors swung open again, and a swarm of police officers entered the room.
Closer to the shooting scene, dozens of people spent hours hiding in their workplaces.
Fred Henning was holed up inside the paralegal’s office where he works with his wife, about a block from the scene of the shooting. Mr. Henning said they were standing outside as helicopters swooped overhead.
“We just came inside because it could be stray bullets, who knows?” Mr. Henning asked.
The block where the shooting took place is home to a number of businesses, Mr. Henning said, including a three-building complex that houses his office and roughly 140 others.
Lynn Spicer, an employee at West Tech/Webcop Interactive Systems which is inside of a nearby office building, said police were not allowing anyone to leave the area.
“I just heard sirens all day, and I went out and I saw nothing but massive cops were out,” Ms. Spicer said.
Ms. Spicer said more than 100 people were brought over from the Inland Regional building and gathered in her office complex’s parking lot.
“It’s shocking that it’s right across the way,” Ms. Spicer said. “It’s very scary.”
President Barack Obama was briefed on the shooting by his Homeland Security adviser Lisa Monaco and asked to be updated as the situation develops.
The president was being interviewed by CBS on Wednesday morning when news of the attack broke, and said the repeated occurrence of mass shootings shows the need for stricter gun laws in the U.S.
“Obviously our hearts go out to the victims and the families,” he said, according to a transcript of the interview. “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.”
Mr. Obama 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 leading Democratic presidential candidates reacted to the shooting with calls to stop gun violence, while much of the Republican field offered thoughts and prayers to victims, first responders and others affected by the killings but did not mention guns laws or gun violence more generally.
The Federal Aviation Administration said it put temporary flight restrictions into place over the city at the request of local law enforcement, according to a spokeswoman.
With nearly 670 employees, the Inland Regional Center serves those with developmental disabilities in Riverside and San Bernardino counties, according to the center’s Facebook page.
The center has provided services to more than 30,200 people with developmental disabilities and their families for at least 40 years. The nonprofit organization serves children, adults and seniors.
The center has been in the news previously.
In 2010, parents and care providers criticized the center for ignoring children’s needs, the San Bernardino Sun reported. The center was accused of showing favoritism regarding vendor rates. Employees filed a civil lawsuit against the center, alleging they were retaliated against for advocating for patients, the Sun reported.
Associated Press, The New York Times and The Washington Post contributed.
First Published: December 2, 2015, 7:46 p.m.
Updated: December 3, 2015, 5:13 a.m.
