News

FBI: Bombing Also Planned in San Bernardino Attack

Richard Winton

01/16/2016

Jan. 16--The FBI's top investigator in the San Bernardino terror attacks said Friday that the husband and wife who shot and killed 14 people on Dec. 2 intended to detonate an explosive device inside the room, though the exact timetable of the plot remains unclear.

David Bowdich, the assistant director in charge of the FBI's Los Angeles field office, said Friday that investigators now believe that Syed Rizwan Farook and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, attempted to detonate a pipe bomb hidden inside a bag at the Inland Regional Center.

What investigators still don't know is whether they planned to detonate the bomb first and then open fire on first responders, or to detonate the device as paramedics and police descended on the facility to tend to gunshot victims.

"Was the intent to detonate prior to their attack?" he said. "We just don't have the answer."

During a news briefing last week, Bowdich said Farook brought a bag containing the pipe bomb into the facility when he arrived at 8:37 a.m. An FBI affidavit said the device was made of three galvanized steel pipes and smokeless powder, and was attached to a remote-control toy car. The bomb was "armed and ready to detonate."

Agents found a remote control for a toy car in the couple's SUV, the affidavit said.

But this marks the first time officials have said the couple attempted to detonate the device.

Farook and Malik drove around San Bernardino and Redlands between the time the attack and a gun battle with police hours later in which they were killed. In that three-hour and 42-minute window, the couple did not stray far from the facility, according to Bowdich. At one point, they even returned to Waterman Avenue and drove in the direction of the building.

A federal law enforcement source previously told The Times that it is possible the couple were unable to detonate the device because the remote was out of range. Sprinklers that went off after the shooting could have also interfered with the explosives, said the source, who requested anonymity to speak candidly about an active investigation.

Bowdich said it may be impossible for investigators to determine the couple's exact plans for use of the bomb, as they have recovered no documents, schematics or other electronic data that reveals prior planning of the assault.

"And I will be quite frank. I am not sure we will ever know that answer," he said Friday.

The idea that Farook wanted to attack in waves bears an eerily resemblance to his aborted plans for a terror attack on a nearby school or freeway in 2012. Court documents show Farook and Enrique Marquez, a longtime friend who has been charged in connection with the attacks, had previously planned to open fire on a section of the 91 Freeway or at Riverside City College.

In the event of either attack, documents show, Farook wanted to first shoot civilians, then lie in wait and assault paramedics and police as they rushed to the scene.

While FBI agents have scoured the couple's social media accounts and other electronic devices, they have yet to locate the hard drive from the couple's home computer, said Bowdich. He believes the hard drive is one of the crucial pieces of outstanding evidence.

Bowdich also said Friday that investigators are continuing to seek evidence that Farook's relatives, or anyone else, had prior knowledge of the attack. During meetings, survivors of the attack have asked Bowdich how Farook's family could not have known about his plans, given the stockpile weapons founds inside the family's Redlands home.

"The answer is we are still working through that," he said Friday. "This is an investigation we are being very cautious with ... we just don't know at this point."

The only accomplice who has been charged in the attack is Marquez, who has admitted to purchasing two of the weapons used in the shootings. The FBI, however, said Marquez was not part of the Dec. 2 plot.

The FBI has yet to uncover evidence of a planned second attack, despite the fact that the couple had stockpiled thousands of rounds of ammunition and a dozen explosive devices inside the family's Redlands home last month.

Six weeks into the investigation, Bowdich said there is still much that may be difficult or impossible to determine about the couple's actions.

"One of the unexplained questions we have is 'why that day and why that venue?'" he said.

"Did they plan secondary attacks? We just don't know," Bowdich continued. "They were heavily armed."

Last week, the FBI released a detailed timeline of Farook's and Malik's movements between the shootings and their deaths in a firefight with police hours later. By reviewing cellphone records, surveillance footage and witness accounts, the FBI has managed to determined their movements for all but 18 minutes of that time frame.

"Until we know what happened in those 18 minutes, I am uncomfortable and my investigators are uncomfortable," Bowdich said Friday. "Because you just don't know if they met with someone and that is disconcerting."