Active Shooter San Bernardino

[stickdog99]

newest round of innuendo

An examination of digital equipment recovered from the home of the couple who killed 14 people in San Bernardino last week has led FBI investigators to believe the shooters were planning an even larger assault, according to federal government sources. Investigators on Thursday continued to search for digital footprints left by Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik, scouring a downtown San Bernardino lake for electronic items, including a hard drive that the couple was hoping to destroy, sources told The Times.

FBI agents will probably spend days searching Seccombe Lake and canvassing the neighborhood for clues after receiving a tip that the couple may have visited the area on the day of the attack, according to David Bowdich, assistant special agent in charge of the FBI's Los Angeles field office.

Farook and Malik were in the final planning stages of an assault on a location or building that housed a lot more people than the Inland Regional Center, possibly a nearby school or college, according to federal sources familiar with the widening investigation.

Investigators have based that conclusion on evidence left behind on Farook and Malik's computers and digital devices, not all of which the couple were able to destroy before they were killed in a firefight with police, the sources said.

Images of San Bernardino-area schools were found on a cellphone belonging to Farook, according to a law enforcement source. But the source cautioned that Farook may have had a legitimate reason to have the images because his work as a county health inspector involved checking on school dining facilities.

On Thursday, one of the federal government sources told The Times that Farook asked his friend and neighbor, Enrique Marquez, to buy two military-style rifles used in the attacks because he feared he "wouldn't pass a background check" if he attempted to acquire the weapons on his own. The rifles were bought at a local gun store, the source said.

The timing of the rifle purchases is significant to FBI investigators. Another federal government source previously told The Times that Farook may have been considering a separate terror plot in 2011 or 2012.

Farook was self-radicalizing around that time, FBI Director James Comey said, and met Malik soon after, eventually escorting her to the United States. Farook was a practicing Muslim. Marquez converted to Islam around the time he purchased the weapons, sources have told The Times.

FBI agents believe Farook abandoned his plans to launch the earlier attack after a law enforcement task force arrested three men in Chino in November 2012. The men were later convicted of charges related to providing material support to terrorists and plotting to kill Americans in Afghanistan. A fourth man arrested in Afghanistan also was convicted in the scheme.

Bowdich said federal agents are investigating whether the men had ties to Farook.

Marquez has emerged as a central figure in the investigation. The FBI had been conducting interviews with 24-year-old, who checked himself into a mental health facility after the attacks.

The former Wal-Mart security guard has waived his Miranda rights and cooperated with the inquiry, and it was Marquez who told FBI agents about Farook's earlier plans, according to one of the government sources, who also requested anonymity.

Officials continue to scour the backgrounds of the shooters who killed 14 people and injured 21 in San Bernardino. "They were talking generally about something, but I don't think it made it to anything specific," one of the sources said of the earlier plot. "I don't think it got to a time or a place."

The source said it remains unclear whether Marquez had any involvement in the planning of the shooting or had any prior knowledge that an attack was pending.

Marquez, a cycling enthusiast who wanted to join the U.S. Navy, was a longtime friend and neighbor of Farook. He also married the sister of Farook's sister-in-law last year, although the circumstances of the union are now under investigation, a government official previously told The Times.

There was no paperwork transferring ownership of the assault rifles from Marquez to Farook, as required by California law, government officials told The Times.

Hours after the shooting, Marquez posted a cryptic message on his Facebook page.

"I'm. Very sorry sguys," the message read. "It was a pleasure."

Bowdich on Thursday declined to answer questions about Marquez, who has not been charged with a crime.

Marquez told FBI agents that the Facebook post has been "misunderstood," according to one of the government sources. Agents are concerned that Marquez's mental and emotional state may affect what he has been telling interrogators, the source said.

While Marquez has spoken to agents about his ties to Farook, federal officials are still working to verify the information he has provided, the source said.

Marquez's mother, Armida Chacon, addressed reporters on Thursday from her Tomlinson Avenue home in Riverside, sobbing as she said she hadn't been in contact with her son since the day of the massacre.

"I don't know how this happened.... My world is upside-down," she said. "My life changed Wednesday."

Chacon was outside with one of her sons, cleaning up the broken glass and twisted panels of their garage door. The damage occurred when federal agents raided the stucco home over the weekend.

As she combed through the wreckage of the garage door, Chacon eventually turned to the reporters camped out on the street and agreed to an off-camera interview.

Marquez was his mother's "right hand at home," helping take care of his brothers, she said.

She said her son loved to hang out with friends and go to parties.

"My son is a good person," she said.

When asked about Farook, Chacon said her son was friends with him and "nothing more."

Chacon said she was overwhelmed by news of the shooting and had spent the last several days crying inside her home.

"I want this to stop," she said.

Don't we all.

[MacCruiskeen]

From The Onion the LA Times:

Two congressmen, after receiving an intelligence briefing Thursday, said neighbors of the shooters told investigators they witnessed "suspicious activity" at the couple's home before the attack but did not report it to authorities.

They didn't provide details about what those activities were. It's also unclear what home the officials were talking about.

[stickdog99]

Congressfolk respond to briefing

California Democrats demanded the lifting of a decades-old ban on federal research into gun violence, while some Republicans in Congress said the shooter’s neighbors didn’t report suspicious activity to law enforcement because of “political correctness.”

Rep. Adam Schiff of California, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said that among the unanswered questions were why Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik decided to attack Farook’s workplace rather than a more symbolic target. Republican Rep. Peter King of New York, chairman of the House of Representatives subcommittee on counterterrorism, called for round-the-clock surveillance of the Muslim community.

...

He and other Republicans said the neighbors apparently “didn’t want to be accused of being discriminatory” against Muslims by reporting them. “They saw activities going on in and out of the garage at various times of the day and night that they thought were suspicious,” Goodlatte said.

Schiff, a Democrat from Burbank, said it wasn’t clear from the investigation that anything members of the public saw would have been enough to prevent the shooting or was suspicious enough to be “apparent without the benefit of hindsight.”

Schiff said it was still a mystery why the shooters, who amassed a large arsenal of ammunition, chose to attack Farook’s co-workers instead of another target.

“The early indications that there was some kind of an argument at the site have proven to be erroneous,” he said.

Several lawmakers said they didn’t learn anything from the briefing that wasn’t already being reported in the news media. “It was notable for the lack of anything that would appear to be classified,” said Rep. Jared Huffman, a California Democrat from San Rafael. “It’s what I could read in The New York Times this morning, or McClatchy.” ...

“The work that was done leading up to the incident was as good as it could be. There don’t seem to be any smoking guns, unfortunately, except for the ones that killed so many people,” he said.

...

“The only way you’re going to find out this in advance is to do the same type of 24/7 surveillance that was done in Italian-American communities when they were going after the Mafia and in the Irish communities when they were going after the Westies,” he said, a reference to an Irish-American gang active on New York City’s West Side.

[stickdog99]

Round up all the smart people who aren't scared enough of Muslims!

[backtoiam]

The blazing lack of details is so noticeable. With this many witness we should have been watching CNN burn up the television with one after another all day and all night long for days on end. Instead they are slipping away from it and talking about terror cells targeting Chicago and other stuff. Something wrong with this picture. Sources said, one official said, a law enforcement said.Not to mention this cheesy excuse and narrative they spun so quick. Spinning for computer surveillance, gun control, same stuff. More interested in passports than anything else today.

[MacCruiskeen]

Schiff said it was still a mystery why the shooters, who amassed a large arsenal of ammunition, chose to attack Farook’s co-workers instead of another target.

“The early indications that there was some kind of an argument at the site have proven to be erroneous,” he said.

"Indications"= carefully-spread rumours in the media, now quietly retracted once everyone's lost interest in the case. Job done.

So, nobody "went postal". Still not a shadow of a motive in sight anywhere.

[MacCruiskeen]

NYT, two days after the attack:

For San Bernardino Survivors, a Day of Screams and Chaos

By ADAM NAGOURNEY, JENNIFER MEDINA, IAN LOVETT and JULIE TURKEWITZ DEC. 5, 2015

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/06/us/wi ... rdino.html

Several witnesses are interviewed, not one of whom mentions any attacker being small, slight, or woman-shaped. This is getting monotonous.

... nytimes.com/2015/12/06/us/witnesses-recall-day-of-terror-in-San-Bernardino.html

Not one of those highly-paid NYT hacks in that team of four (in figures: 4) thinks of even asking the witnesses how many attackers they saw or what they looked like. Or if the hacks did think to ask those most obvious and unavoidable questions, they (or their editor) have chosen not tell us what the witnesses said in reply.

[backtoiam]

Well, they have had bad luck in the past using witnesses on tv in the past. People were finding pictures of some of them and discovering that they were not who they claimed to be. They may try it again sometime but in one specific incident in the past it was rampant bad luck on that.

[Elvis]

Well, they have had bad luck in the past using witnesses on tv in the past. People were finding pictures of some of them and discovering that they were not who they claimed to be. They may try it again sometime but in one specific incident in the past it was rampant bad luck on that.

[divideandconquer]

If insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results, then aren't we all insane? Because that's what's happening here. All of these events start out with inflammatory, highly sensational, polarizing and over the top reporting. They take over 24/7 "news" networks and throw everything they can at us--sure to include increasingly ludicrous bits to incite further investigation by conspiracy theorists--within the first 24-48 hours. Then, as interest starts to wane, only those of us who don't accept the mainstream circus continue to investigate until the next media circus shooting/bombing starts. And the cycle starts all over again. We never solve anything but never fail to dedicate our time and effort to investigating all of the contradictory and ludicrous details of these events.

It would be interesting to see how long these threads remain at the top. This morning, ten days later, is the first time I noticed it wasn't amongst the first three to four threads. I guess my point is that we're not much different than the all accepting sheep because we react the same way every single time: getting lost in the details...expecting different results?

By now shouldn't we know what's going on? Get the big picture and let it go. The details do not matter because we'll never solve it.

[stickdog99]

It's like mailing yourself a note during a nightmare.

[elfismiles]

Theres only so much cyber-sleuthing one can do since your evidence base is increasingly limited by decreasing reportage (and probable / possible scrubbing of net info trails).

Yeah, we've seen this all before - thus: PrecCognitive Dissonance


Plus... ...this shit is wack!

It's hard enough for me... as a copycat-effect obsessed survivor of a childhood mass shooting... who works for a "non-profit" supporting people with disabilities... who is aware of deep state parapolitical covert-op shenanigans... to stomach the ever present, ever growing "people are waking up" and Post-Phil-Dickian "nothing is real" mantras.

As a militant agnostic easily swayed temporarily off that fence, back and forth across the liminal chainlink separating the backyards of belief, disbelief, belief, disbelief... on an on ... I get dizzy and nauseous from watching those who KNOW within and without the "conspiracy community."

And so it goes, yeah, insanity repeating. And about all I can do is gawk, squawk and watch it all burn.

[Luther Blissett]

Well at least we can all be comforted in the knowledge that insanity is not doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Some here certainly do seem to stay on task, like Wombaticus, American Dream, Fruhmenschen, Hugh, and many, many others. One positive potential here is that the effects might one day have an aggregate, cumulative outcome. That's an aspiration. Who knows what biscuit crumb from this event might connect to something like the Jejune Institute or some future event. I have confidence this would be the place to uncover that.

[elfismiles]

Well at least we can all be comforted in the knowledge that insanity is not doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Some here certainly do seem to stay on task, like Wombaticus, American Dream, Fruhmenschen, Hugh, and many, many others. One positive potential here is that the effects might one day have an aggregate, cumulative outcome. That's an aspiration. Who knows what biscuit crumb from this event might connect to something like the Jejune Institute or some future event. I have confidence this would be the place to uncover that.

UPDATES > Jejune begot Latitude begot... ?

[Luther Blissett]

I heard the three white shooters in San Bernadino thought they were playing an elaborate ARG.