Active Shooter San Bernardino

[PufPuf93]

Wait…where did the grandmother and baby go? Forgive me.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/what-h ... ID=DELLDHP

What happens next to the baby orphaned by the San Bernardino shooters


The terrorism attack here orphaned a baby. Her parents were the killers.

The child, born on May 21, is in the custody of San Bernardino County child protective services – her precise whereabouts undisclosed, though presumably she is with a foster family.

At an age when a baby typically learns to crawl and can understand words, if not yet manage to speak them, the girl is at the center of a court case that will determine who will raise her.

Her parents, Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik, died in a frenzied gun battle on Dec. 2, four hours after going on a rampage that killed 14 people and wounded nearly two dozen others. Investigators believe the pair had other targets in mind, possibly a school or college, in addition to the attack at the Inland Regional Center.

They left the baby with Farook’s mother, Rafia Farook, at the couple’s home in a quiet neighborhood in Redlands. Rafia Farook moved in with her son and daughter-in-law in June after selling her home in Riverside. She initiated divorce proceedings against Farook’s father, who is also named Syed Farook, and they are legally separated.

Saira Khan, the baby’s aunt—the older sister of Farook—is seeking, along with husband Farhan Khan, custody of the baby.

[The San Bernardino killers’ network of interest]

The Khans live in a ranch-style home on a cul-de-sac in a well-tended subdivision in La Sierra, a community between Corona and Riverside. They have a 7-year-old son and 2-year-old daughter. On Sunday, Farhan Khan emerged from his home to speak to a man from a garage-door repair company who was working on his garage. He politely declined to grant an interview to two reporters who briefly stopped by.

“I’ve already said too much,” he said, and referred questions to an attorney. The attorney did not respond to messages.

The family members have said in interviews, and via statements made by their lawyers, that they were completely unaware that Farook and Malik had been radicalized and intended to carry out a terrorist attack.

In an interview with ABC News, Saira Khan said of her brother, “At this time I feel like he had a double life.” She expressed anguish about the terror attack, and said of her brother and sister-in-law, “How can he leave his only child, you know? And how could the mother do this?”

She said she and her husband could give the orphaned baby “a stable upbringing.”

“For the time being, we want her to enjoy her innocence,” she told ABC News. “You know, we don’t want her to know everything, but I think eventually she will find out probably on her own.”

The family members have been interviewed extensively by the FBI since the Dec. 2 attack. They have also been besieged by reporters and TV camera crews—at Farook’s brother’s condo in Corona the business cards of journalists were piling up at the entrance.

At the Corona mosque where Khan and his wife are active members, Yousuf Bhaghani, the director of the mosque’s board, said of Farhan Khan, “He wants his life back where he can be a normal American man living the American Dream.”

Mostafa Mahboob, a spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Los Angeles who has been handling media requests for the family, said the family doesn’t want to give interviews right now because they’re in the middle of the custody case.

CAIR released a statement after a custody hearing last Monday:

“The family is naturally distraught at the separation and are eagerly awaiting to obtain custody of the six-month-old girl. CAIR-LA is working to make sure that the baby is placed with a Muslim foster family while she remains in the custody of San Bernardino County Child Protective Services. It is also working with the family to ensure that the child is swiftly reunited with her family.”

C.L. Lopez, a spokeswoman for San Bernardino County Children and Family Services, said the agency cannot comment on the case.

Richard Wexler, executive director of the Alexandria, Va.-based National Coalition for Child Protection Reform, expressed concern about the baby’s welfare as long as she is separated from her relatives. The first preference in a case with an orphaned child is placement with a relative, because kinship care is safer, and more humane and stable, he said.

“It shouldn’t be taking them this long,” Wexler said about the decision where to place the infant. “What’s taking so long is the fear of public backlash. “There frankly shouldn’t be an issue unless there is strong evidence the relatives were involved with the plot.”

In a typical situation the child would stay with the grandmother who had already been caring for her. If the grandmother did not pass a background check – in this case she lived with her son and daughter-in-law in a home that, according to authorities, had guns, thousands of rounds of ammunition, and material for making nearly two dozen pipe bombs – the baby could be placed with another relative, Wexler said.

“You have an infant who has no idea what is going on,” Wexler said. “All she knows is that the people she counted on for love and nurturing are gone… Being removed from parents is traumatic for any child, and the younger the child, the greater the trauma. The trauma is compounded when the placement is with strangers, and compounded again if the child is moved from home to home, as often happens when children are placed with strangers.”

[Elvis]

WATCH: Police and San Bernardino Shooting Suspects Exchange Gunfire_Fox News Insider

WATCH! - no, don't bother, because the title is a blatant and shameless lie (yet another one). Of course it is. It is merely the telly shouting at you, again, to admit you see something that isn't there. ADMIT! ADMIT!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LyTtc_apxJ4

Actually I think this video is useful.

This is the first time I've seen the SUV in motion with police cars following. What jumps out to me in the video is, as the FOX reporter points out, that it's a "slow speed chase" which he estimates is about 35mph.

To explain the slow SUV, he continues, it's "almost as if they were preparing to fire back." *

I don't think it's been mentioned here thus far, but remote control of that SUV strikes me as a distinct possibility.

I still haven't seen any official explanation of why the couple would rent a black SUV, or evidence they did in fact rent one (that conveniently bears easy-to-spot, out-of-state license plates).

The driver of the SUV that left the scene of the shootings was described by at least two witnesses as driving off very slowly and deliberately, as if he didn't have a care in the world (or didn't want to unnecessarily attract attention be peeling out at high speed).

Was the SUV that left the scene the same SUV as the one in the "chase" (as we are told)?

As to whether the SUV was "traced" to Farook's address, or someone "called it in," the reporter is fuzzy—"it could be a multitude of things"; my guess is that someone (probably anonymous) phoned in a "tip" that led to Farook's house. If it was the SUV they were interested in, why did they let the it leave the driveway when they arrived at the house?

Possible scenario?: the couple, perhaps already killed, were placed into the remote-controlled SUV, whose controllers waited for the police to arrive before remotely driving the vehicle away, naturally to be "chased" by the police once told that's what they're looking for.


Another note: The police definitely appear to have fired first, and quite possibly exclusively. Have any bullet holes been found to have come from the SUV? There was a report of an officer hit, and helicopter video of him on the ground; the injury was, it turned out, a ricochet (I'd say almost certainly from the 100s of police weapons being fired). In other words, is there any evidence that any shots were fired from the SUV?


* I can imagine the ISIS training session: "Remember, my brothers—and sisters!—to assure your glorious martyrdom, when you are fleeing from the police in your getaway vehicle, be sure to slow down sufficiently so they may carefully aim their weapons at you."


edited to add video... again to correct typo

[SonicG]

The King wrote:

As to whether the SUV was "traced" to Farook's address to someone "called it in," the reporter is fuzzy—"it could be a multitude of things"; my guess is that someone (probably anonymous) phoned in a "tip" that led to Farook's house. If it was the SUV they were interested in, why did they let the it leave the driveway when they arrived at the house?

I had the impression that Farook leaving the party suddenly (in a huff?) was the main "clue" although there are mentions of tips. But, yes, the exact situation regarding the cops approaching their house and them getting away has not been clarified at, AFAIK, and remains a crucial mystery.

I posted this before....why didn't they hop on the freeway? Rush hour? Main streets would be busy then also. And of course, why the F would they head back TOWARDS the scene of the shooting:


ETA:
This just in!
Here’s what happened to the third San Bernardino shooting suspect
http://www.sbsun.com/general-news/20151 ... ng-suspect
Bottom line:

“Initial (information) was chaotic and indicated three may have been involved,” he tweeted on Monday. “Extensive follow up interviews have shown two were involved.”

....
She’s less sympathetic to the people apparently spreading hoax images, repurposed from other terrorist incidents.

“If there’s really more information, the authorities will follow up,” she said. “But just creating fictitious images of attackers, not helpful, not helpful. There are limited law enforcement resources, so you really don’t want law enforcement to engaged in wild goose chases.”

The official story makes sense from Levenson’s experience as a prosecutor.

“In my experience, the most likely explanation is that this person had other small matters involving the law that they didn’t want to get caught up in,” she said. “They’re in shock, they didn’t want to be there. All of those are more likely explanations than they were a third shooter.”

But Levenson said such explanations are unlikely to satisfy everyone:

“People are still trying to find the person on the grassy knoll,” she said. “Some people will make this their life’s work.”

Of course this just shoves the eye witness reports of a third shooter, all being male, and focusing on the report of someone running away from the shooting site...

[stickdog99]

LA Times: All the unnamed source innuendo that is fit to print

Trust Us, the Wife Was a Jihad Crazy

San Bernardino shooter Tashfeen Malik sent at least two private messages on Facebook to a small group of Pakistani friends in 2012 and 2014, pledging her support for Islamic jihad and saying she hoped to join the fight one day, two top federal law enforcement officials said Monday.

The new details indicate U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies missed warnings on social media that Malik was a potential threat before she entered the United States on a K-1 fiancee visa in July 2014.

The two Facebook messages were recovered by FBI agents investigating whether Malik and her husband, Syed Rizwan Farook, received any direct encouragement, financial support or specific instructions from foreign terrorist organizations before they carried out the Dec. 2 attacks.

One of the officials characterized the messages as “her private communications … to a small group of her friends.”

The official added, “it went only to this small group in Pakistan.” The official said they were written in Urdu, an official language of Pakistan.

The second official said Malik “expressed her desire” in one of the posts to become a jihadist in her own right.

Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the ongoing investigation into the San Bernardino attack, which left 14 people dead and 22 wounded.

So far, the FBI has found that the couple separately self-radicalized before they met on the Internet, apparently in 2013. FBI Director James Comey told a Senate panel last week that they may have become radicalized far earlier, but he did not disclose the Facebook messages.

On the day of the shooting at the Inland Regional Center, Malik and Farook used Facebook to declare their joint allegiance to Islamic State, the extremist group that controls large parts of Iraq and Syria. The post was later taken down.

So it was not just the wife as previously reported, but now a JOINT CHIEFS' PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE!

FBI divers, who spent several days searching a San Bernardino lake near the couple’s home, recovered a few items but nothing that could be traced back to the couple, officials also said Monday. The dives were completed Monday.

“At best it was a hunch that something was in there,” said one. The official said a tipster had recalled seeing a couple by the lake on the day of the shootings. ...

Pressing criminal charges against him would cut off “any opportunity to let him lead investigators to any other persons or to an organization with whom he may be or may have been in contact with in the furtherance of the San Bernardino attack or other planned terrorist attacks,” one official said.

Yeah! What incentive would he have to lie in order to save his ass from going to prison for no reason then!

Other officials said Malik didn’t raise any red flags in the government’s review of her visa application. “There were no indications of any ill intent at the time that visa was issued,” Elizabeth Kennedy Trudeau, a State Department spokeswoman, said in an interview.

Trudeau said allegations that Malik gave a false home address in her application were not true: “We believe it was the ]correct answer.”

Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said last week that Malik had listed a false address in Pakistan on her application.

[stickdog99]

Would you believe Mel Brooks?

Enrique Marquez, a friend of San Bernardino shooter Syed Farook, told investigators that he and Farook had previously built pipe bombs, but not the ones found at Farook and Tashfeen Malik's house or the ones that supposedly did not go off at the scene of the shooting. Marquez, who voluntarily submitted to a several-day-long interview, represented himself and Farook as hobbyists toying around with the bombs, officials told CNN. He supposedly boasted that if he had built the pipe bombs found at the scene of the shooting, they would have gone off. Marquez is a person of interest in the mass shooting investigation because he apparently bought the rifles Farook and Malik used. He has not been charged with any crime.

[stickdog99]

Hoover Institute by way of the NY Post

What could possibly make them terrorists other than our need for them to be terrorists?

So what was it? The feds are still scratching their heads, willfully blind to the obvious religious factor.

But this much they know: “These two killers were starting to radicalize towards martyrdom and jihad as early as 2013, and so that’s really before ISIL [ISIS] became the global jihad leader that it is,” FBI Director James Comey testified Wednesday. “They were actually radicalized before they started dating.”

Unlike other mass murderers, who exhibit antisocial, paranoid, narcissistic or schizoid traits, Farook and Malik do not appear to be natural born killers. Neither had a history of violence nor criminal record, and both generally were described as pleasant people.

In fact, friends invariably called the 28-year-old Farook a “very nice person,” while his landlord even described him as a “very gentle person.” He enjoyed working on old cars and shooting hoops. For her part, the 29-year-old Malik was seen as “a good girl” and a good student who aspired to be a pharmacist. Before dressing in austere Islamic clothing, she was even viewed as a “modern girl.”

Muslims and non-Muslims alike spoke highly of them both. Then suddenly a switch went off, and the couple went medieval.

By all accounts, that switch was piety. They simply got closer to their religion, immersing themselves in Islamic scripture. Farook and Malik devoted themselves to Islamic study, which culminated in both of them memorizing the Koran, a high honor in Islam. They began wearing traditional Islamic garb — Farook, a white tunic and skullcap, and Malik, a black veil and robe.

Before long, Farook was slaughtering fellow Americans, many of them co-workers, shooting them at point-blank range with his wife by his side, the two of them stopping only to reload. Why? Because as US taxpayers, the 14 people they killed supported Israel and the Jews.

We saw the same transformation in the Tsarnaev brothers of Boston, who were considered “nice” and “normal,” even partiers — until their mother made them stick their noses in their holy books and get religion. Within a matter of just a couple of years of becoming more fervent in their Muslim faith, these “typical American boys” were making shrapnel bombs and blowing off limbs of innocent bystanders at the Boston Marathon to “punish” fellow Americans for supporting wars in Muslim lands. And that was after the oldest boy, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, nearly beheaded a couple of Jews he once befriended. ...

The change was dramatic in both boys, who stopped partying and started hating — Jews, Christians, America. Suddenly they were growing out Islamic beards and saying they were “willing to die for Islam.”

A similar change came over the Chattanooga jihadist, Mohammad Abdulazeez, who was described as “very friendly” — until he became intensely observant in his faith and saw it as his religious duty to fatally gun down five soldiers in Tennessee earlier this year.

Moreover, two brothers suspected in last month’s Paris terror attacks were born-again Muslims as well. Reportedly, they really began to change around six months prior to the attacks, when they stopped drinking and started studying and praying.

This phenomenon is well documented in virtually every FBI case of homegrown American terrorism: the more religious, the more radical. The pattern is borne out in hundreds of criminal complaints and court documents since 9/11 that I’ve reviewed for my books on terrorism. Almost to a person, suspects are described by family, friends, neighbors or co-workers as “nice” — that is the universal adjective for these mass murderers — until they get closer to their religion and suddenly seek out infidels to kill.

Case agents have seen the link between Islamic belief and violence firsthand.

“Evidence exists to demonstrate that a greater level of adherence to Islamic law correlates to a greater likelihood of violence,” said FBI veteran John Guandolo, who worked some of the nation’s biggest terrorism cases out of the bureau’s Washington field office after 9/11.

Studies back him up, including one recently published in Europe that found that Islam is the only religion in the world in which people become more violent the stronger they believe.

Danish linguist Tina Magaard and a team of researchers spent three years examining the texts of the 10 largest religions to see if any incite violence. “The texts of Islam are clearly distinct from the other religions’ texts, as they, to a higher degree, call for violence and aggression against followers of other faiths,” she concluded. “There are also direct incitements to terror.”

Unlike federal agents and investigators working terrorism cases on the ground, higher-ups in Washington are too clouded by politically correct fantasies about Islam to accept what is self-evident. They cannot even entertain religion as a motivating factor in terrorism. They cannot fathom that such heinous violence could be inspired by sacred texts.

Forced to rule out workplace rage, seduction and now ISIS as sources in the San Bernardino case, Comey now says: “We’re working very hard to understand the source of their inspiration.” ...

Brass will continue searching in vain for an “un-Islamic” motive — anything to avoid arriving at the inevitable, unspeakable conclusion that these Muslims, like countless jihadists before them, were faithfully following the dictates of Islam.

The switch that turns a good person into a “bad Muslim” isn’t heretical outside forces. The tens of thousands of jihadists threatening the West aren’t all “brainwashed” by evil modern cult figures. Though personalities certainly have an influence, the main influence is the religion itself. If there’s any radicalization, it’s self-radicalization through devotion.

“They think they’re doing something good for Allah,” al Qaeda informant Morten Storm, a former Muslim, said. “They really believe that.” ...

Most Christians today don’t read the Bible literally, and the ones that do are roundly mocked by liberals. But those same liberals bristle at any suggestion that Islam is inherently intolerant.

Islam is not a “religion of peace,” and won’t be until most of its followers — the Taliban, the Ayatollah, ISIS, the Muslim Brotherhood, the mullahs of Saudi Arabia — reject tenets like jihad. To suggest otherwise is naive. Virtually everyone is hacking at the branches of this growing menace, and almost no one is striking at its root.

[SonicG]

Good lord...it is certainly a tightly wound narrative being built here. Read the Koran and in six months, you are sure that killing rando, or better yet, non-rando whiteys is truly helping. But really, wouldn't you want to promote your lunacy if you were that fervent to gun down your co-workers with your wife? Why not fly an ISIS flag on that SUV and start shooting as you roll down the main drag. That would certainly strike some fear of god into the heretical devils...The implications of the fact that officials were supposedly restricted from surfing social media comments of refugee applicants are choice and guaranteed to result in more Internet spying powers, anti-encryption efforts, etc.

911 was 14 years ago. We all need a refresher course in fear....

[AlicetheKurious]

Studies back him up, including one recently published in Europe that found that Islam is the only religion in the world in which people become more violent the stronger they believe.

Danish linguist Tina Magaard and a team of researchers spent three years examining the texts of the 10 largest religions to see if any incite violence. “The texts of Islam are clearly distinct from the other religions’ texts, as they, to a higher degree, call for violence and aggression against followers of other faiths,” she concluded. “There are also direct incitements to terror.”

These are a series of bald-faced lies. Real "studies" show the opposite: the most in-depth investigation, conducted by British MI5 of thousands of known cases of radicalized "Islamists" concluded:

Far from being religious zealots, a large number of those involved in terrorism do not practise their faith regularly. Many lack religious literacy and could actually be regarded as religious novices. Very few have been brought up in strongly religious households, and there is a higher than average proportion of converts. Some are involved in drug-taking, drinking alcohol and visiting prostitutes. MI5 says there is evidence that a well-established religious identity actually protects against violent radicalisation. Link

Keep in mind that most of the passages quoted in the video below come from the Old Testament, i.e. the Torah.

[Elvis]

That video is great, I've shown it to a couple of people who were persuaded to rethink the hate propaganda.

That NY Post article is nauseating; it almost reads like it was written before the event, perhaps (perhaps not) just waiting for names to be filled in and published.

[AlicetheKurious]

That NY Post article is nauseating; it almost reads like it was written before the event, perhaps (perhaps not) just waiting for names to be filled in and published.

Yeah. I tried to google this supposed 'study', and just found brief references to it in anti-Islam propaganda sites, using words and phrasing almost identical to what was in the NY Post article. The one link I did find, purporting to lead to the 'study' itself, led to an Amazon entry for a book called "Sharia Versus Freedom," by one Andrew G. Bostom, who seems to have made a literary career out of Islam-bashing, including writing articles attacking Islam for various right-wing publications, including FrontPageMag and the like, though he is a medical doctor and does not seem to have any qualifications to write about Islam. There was no reference to the study or this Danish woman.

Anyway. Based on my own knowledge, being extremely familiar with the Bible's New Testament and Old Testament, and undoubtedly knowing a lot more about the Quran than this Bostom guy, I can state with reasonable confidence the following comparison of the core texts of the three religions concerning violence:

1) Based on the New Testament, Christianity forbids all forms of violence and killing, even in self-defense.

2) Based on the Quran, violence is permitted only in self-defense, when the other party attacks first. It is forbidden to commit violence against or to kill non-combatants, including former combatants who have surrendered. It is strictly forbidden to harm women or children or the elderly, with no exceptions. It is forbidden to harm a tree or poison a well. In the case of someone who has killed or injured another person, the victim has the right to demand a punishment equal to the crime ("an eye for an eye"), but the Quran explicitly says that those who forgive the debt will receive a greater reward in Heaven.

3) Based on the Old Testament, there are many instances in which "God" commands "His" people to invade other peoples' lands and to commit genocide, leaving nothing alive, including infants and animals.

Exodus 23:31
I will establish your borders from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean Sea, and from the desert to the Euphrates River. I will give into your hands the people who live in the land, and you will drive them out before you.

Deuteronomy 20:17
Only in the cities of these peoples that the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance, you shall not leave alive anything that breathes. "But you shall utterly destroy them, the Hittite and the Amorite, the Canaanite and the Perizzite, the Hivite and the Jebusite, as the LORD your God has commanded you.

Numbers 21:2
Then Israel made this vow to the LORD: "If you will deliver these people into our hands, we will totally destroy their cities."

Numbers 21:3
The LORD listened to Israel's plea and gave the Canaanites over to them. They completely destroyed them and their towns; so the place was named Hormah.

Numbers 31:17
Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man.

Deuteronomy 7:1
When the LORD your God brings you into the land you are entering to possess and drives out before you many nations--the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites, seven nations larger and stronger than you--

Deuteronomy 20:15
This is how you are to treat all the cities that are at a distance from you and do not belong to the nations nearby.

Deuteronomy 20:17
Completely destroy them--the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites--as the LORD your God has commanded you.

Joshua 6:21
They devoted the city to the LORD and destroyed with the sword every living thing in it--men and women, young and old, cattle, sheep and donkeys.

Joshua 6:24
Then they burned the whole city and everything in it, but they put the silver and gold and the articles of bronze and iron into the treasury of the LORD's house.

Joshua 8:8
When you have taken the city, set it on fire. Do what the LORD has commanded. See to it; you have my orders.

Joshua 8:25
Twelve thousand men and women fell that day--all the people of Ai.

Joshua 10:20
So Joshua and the Israelites defeated them completely, but a few survivors managed to reach their fortified cities.

Joshua 10:28
That day Joshua took Makkedah. He put the city and its king to the sword and totally destroyed everyone in it. He left no survivors. And he did to the king of Makkedah as he had done to the king of Jericho.

Joshua 10:40
So Joshua subdued the whole region, including the hill country, the Negev, the western foothills and the mountain slopes, together with all their kings. He left no survivors. He totally destroyed all who breathed, just as the LORD, the God of Israel, had commanded.

Joshua 11:11
Everyone in it they put to the sword. They totally destroyed them, not sparing anyone that breathed, and he burned Hazor itself.

Joshua 11:12
Joshua took all these royal cities and their kings and put them to the sword. He totally destroyed them, as Moses the servant of the LORD had commanded.

Joshua 11:14
The Israelites carried off for themselves all the plunder and livestock of these cities, but all the people they put to the sword until they completely destroyed them, not sparing anyone that breathed.

1 Samuel 15:3
Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy all that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.

And that's just a sample.

[zangtang]

with all that 'the lord your God' commanding to smite,destroy,lay waste, plunder & not spare repeatedly, one might be tempted to think someone was playing 'the man behind the curtain'....................

[RocketMan]

http://gawker.com/nothing-about-this-ar ... socialflow

Nothing About This Army Exercise During the San Bernardino Shooting Makes Sense

While most of local law enforcement was scrambling to contain the San Bernardino shooters, three soldiers dressed in plain clothes were touring the city’s elementary schools, asking “suspicious” questions and generally freaking everyone out.

It’s a weird story: The men were apparently on official Army business—except no one could confirm it at the time, and county officials were never warned in accordance with normal procedure. That oversight, it seems, may have been because the men were never authorized to visit the elementary schools—a vaguely unsettling choice they made “on their own initiative.”

The details, via the Jacksonville Daily News:

The men had gone to White Oak Elementary and Bogue Sound Elementary schools after noon on Wednesday and were asking questions as to whether the schools were designated as crisis evacuation centers, according to a press release from the sheriff’s office. The men were asked for ID and showed what officials say looked like military style ID cards and said they were from Fort Bragg, according to CCSO. Those IDs, however, were not verified at the time, and local military installations subsequently told investigators that there were not any exercises or security assessments underway in Carteret County.

People were reportedly so freaked out that the Sheriff’s Office sent out a public press release asking for help in identifying the men. Eventually officials were able to confirm the men were part of “an official exercise that deployed teams to gather information in preparation for major disasters including military incidents, hurricane and flooding disasters, and locating food banks and shelter locations.” Elementary schools were decidedly not part of the investigation.

“This particular one fell through the cracks,” Carteret County Sheriff Asa Buck said in an understated press release.

[backtoiam]

This is a very long thread forgive me if this has already been posted, I would be surprised if this is not already in here somewhere, but this was too bizarro not to post.

About a year ago, employees of San Bernardino County's Environmental Health Services division underwent an "active-shooter training."

It was held at the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino -- in the very same room that would one day be a site of bloodshed and horror.

It was not clear if gunman Syed Rizwan Farook, an environmental health specialist for the county, attended the earlier training, but some of the victims of Wednesday's mass shooting were likely to have participated, said a county spokeswoman.

Staff members within Farook's division will return to work next week, but other county departments reopened Monday.

“The purpose of terrorism is to make ordinary people afraid to do the ordinary things that make up their lives,” county Supervisor Janice Rutherford said Monday, five days after the massacre.

“These were dedicated public servants. They weren’t politicians, they weren’t celebrities. They weren’t law enforcement officers, they weren’t soldiers. But they became the front line in a battle against terrorists. To honor them, to express our gratitude for their unimaginable sacrifice, we have to fight to maintain that ordinary.”

Of the 14 fatalities, 12 were county employees.


Trudy Raymundo, director of the county’s public health department, had been at the party held at the Inland Regional Center when the assailants -- Farook and his wife, Tashfeen Malik -- opened fire.

As her voice wavered Monday, she publicly thanked authorities and medical personnel who responded and requested that the community join together in grief.

“Mourn with us the loss of our colleagues, of our friends, of our families and our loved ones,” she said. “I ask that you come together and hold each other strong, because it is this strength that will help us heal. And I want you to every day be grateful for those of us that were spared.”

Raymundo said she had arrived about an hour before the shooting began Wednesday, noting that the usual camaraderie was on display.

“They were upbeat, they were happy, they were learning from each other, which is indicative of what this group has always been,” she said. “I want to make it clear that this is a very tight, close-knit group. They have always supported each other. They are beyond co-workers. They are friends and they are family. They are tight and we are holding onto each other right now.”

County officials pledged to ramp up security measures. James Ramos, chairman of the Board of Supervisors, said county buildings would see an increase in security guards and that many of them would be armed, but declined to go into details. He said employees would also be asked for their input on what would make them feel safe.

Farook and Malik strode into the holiday party about 11 a.m. and fired at least 65 shots at Farook’s co-workers.

Police later tracked down the couple, who got into a pitched gun battle in a San Bernardino residential neighborhood. Farook, an American citizen, and Malik, a Pakistani national, were killed.

Personnel at Arrowhead Regional Medical Center had readied themselves for the gunshot victims headed their way last week.

One of their physicians, Dr. Michael Neeki -- a member of a multi-agency SWAT team -- said he drove to the scene of the shooting, making his way around barricades. He took a handgun with him into the building because it was feared the shooters were still inside. After making sure the second floor was clear, he headed to the scene of the final shootout in an armored vehicle.

Arrowhead ended up treating six victims, all of whom survived.

“To see something of this magnitude is unexpected. To have it in our country is unexpected,” said Dr. Kona Seng on Monday.

“But if you were there and looked into the eyes of those who were working … that sort of restores some of that faith in humanity,” he added.

Times staff writer Corina Knoll contributed to this report.

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-m ... story.html

[backtoiam]

I think this deserves to be in the RI database but to do it properly the formatting will take a good bit of time. I may work on it tonight.

http://21stcenturywire.com/2015/12/13/t ... he-scenes/

[seemslikeadream]

A THOUSAND SCHOOLS IN L.A. ARE CLOSED TODAY AFTER THREAT

DECEMBER 15, 2015
A Conspiracy of Fear-Mongers
by SHELDON RICHMAN

CNN-report-criticised

Over the weekend CNN breathlessly reported as “Breaking News” — it breathlessly reports everything as “Breaking News” — a new poll indicating that people are increasingly frightened about terrorism. The accompanying web story stated, “Terrorism has eclipsed the economy as voters’ top pick for the biggest issue facing America, a New York Times/CBS News poll has found. Last month only 4% of Americans said terrorism was the most important problem, according to the New York Times. Now nearly one in five — 19% — believe it is.”

The story goes on:

Following terrorist attacks in Paris and in San Bernardino, California, the poll said Americans are more fearful about the likelihood of another terrorist attack than at any other time since the weeks after Sept. 11, 2001….

More than four in 10 Americans — 44% — believe an attack is “very” likely to happen in the next few months. And 70% say that ISIS is a major threat to America’s security.

Nearly 60% of people are “very” concerned about the threat of terrorism against Americans committed by elements entering the U.S. from other countries. And 63% are “very” concerned about the threat of terrorism against Americans committed by people currently living in the U.S. who are inspired by foreign extremists.”

How likely is an American to be a victim? Curiously, CNN never bothers to say.

In fact, the likelihood is so low that the saturation coverage — which is better described as fear-mongering — looks ridiculous. Commonplace things are far more likely to kill Americans than terrorism — from any source — yet you won’t learn that by watching TV or reading the daily newspaper.

It’s not as though qualified interviewees would be hard to find. John Mueller and Mark G. Stewart have been putting the terrorist threat in perspective for years. Chasing Ghosts: The Policing of Terrorism is their latest attempt to cool things down.

“Although the yearly chance an American will be killed by a terrorist within the country is about one in 4 million under present conditions,” Mueller and Stewart write, “around 40 percent of Americans have professed, in polls taken since late 2001, that they worry they or a family member will become a victim of a terrorist.”

Of course. The media work overtime to make them afraid. But getting killed by an asteroid is more likely. Richard Jackson of the National Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies in New Zealand says we have more to fear from bathtubs and vending machines.

After the attacks, American officials from the president on down sounded repeated alarms about how many al-Qaeda operatives (2,000-5,000) and sleeper cells were in America and about a coming second wave of terrorism. The lack of evidence was considered evidence. No operatives or cells were found and no second wave took place, yet no official apologized.

Thus the U.S. government’s expenditure of trillions of dollars since 9/11 is shown to be outrageous.

We’ve been through this before. In the 1980s a group of right-wing “experts,” aided by the media, tried to scare Americans into believing that Soviet-trained terrorists were among us. If so, they preferred living here peacefully to creating mayhem.

Why do the government, the media establishment, and an assortment of consultants traffic in fear?

It’s not a hard question. Many people profit from fear-mongering about terrorism. Politicians and bureaucrats gain more power. They also gain access to more money (through borrowing, that is, taxation of future generations). That money ends up in the terrorism industry, a constellation of firms that sell the government endless quantities of goods and services.

No presidential candidate dare tell the truth because rivals will portray him or her as a weak-kneed, head-in-the-sand appeaser. Fear-mongering brings the worst to the top.

Finally, the news media and the “sham ‘terrorism expert’ industry” it fosters have every incentive to exaggerate any danger. Fear-mongering attracts viewers and builds circulation. Why would CNN report something that might prompt viewers to change the channel?

Regular Americans pay a heavy price — in stress (which is a killer), in lost liberty and privacy, and in prosperity forgone. Fear of terrorism also makes people more willing to support American militarism in the Middle East, which creates more would-be terrorists than it destroys and keeps the scam going.

What will it take to change this perverse system that thrives on power, war, and fear?