By Rory Carroll in San Bernardino, Paul Lewis in San Francisco, Peter Walker and Nadia Khomami in London, and Tom Dart in Riverside, California
Syed Rizwan Farook seemed to have so much going for him, a colleague said he was “living the American dream”.
Young and fit with a good job, a new bride and a newborn baby, the 28-year-old environmental health specialist appeared to be putting down roots in San Bernardino.
He had no criminal record, no known ties to religious or political radicalism. Colleagues at the San Bernardino County public health department said Farook was quiet and polite. Earlier this year they threw a baby shower for him and his partner, Tashfeen Malik.
But on Thursday, with 14 victims in the morgue and 21 wounded, and police sifting through an arsenal of ammunition and apparent bomb-making equipment at the couple’s home, it was clear something had gone terribly wrong.
But what?
“We still don’t have a motive,” the city’s police chief, Jarrod Burgua, told a news conference.
However pieces of the puzzle, indicating a possible mix of personal and ideological motives, did begin to emerge.
Law enforcement sources told CNN that Farook, who was born in Illinois but had Pakistani heritage, was in touch with people being investigated by the FBI for international terrorism. This could not be independently verified by the Guardian.
Until Wednesday’s atrocity, neither he nor Malik was known to the FBI or on a list of potentially radicalised people. Investigators poring through his records said Farook communicated by phone and via social media with more than one person being investigated for terrorism, said CNN, citing law enforcement officials.
The second red flag was that he had encountered possible problems at work. Some witnesses said Farook left early from the Christmas luncheon party at the Inland Regional Center after an angry altercation. “There was some type of dispute,” Burguan said.
However, that does not account for the preparation for the assault: black tactical-style clothing; assault rifles, handguns, pipe bombs; and a remote-controlled explosive device placed in the black SUV the couple had rented several days earlier.
Griselda Reisinger, a colleague who left the department several months ago, told the LA Times there was a fraught atmosphere at work, with many workers unhappy with management.
The motives of anyone who plans a mass shooting are necessarily murky and complex. But the actions of Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik seem more incomprehensible still.
In one of the most jarring details to emerge in the aftermath of the shooting, it is now known that the couple, who died in a gunfight with police, began their day by leaving their six-month-old daughter with Farook’s mother.
Hussam Ayloush, who heads the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Los Angeles, said Farook, 28, and Malik, 27, said they were going to a doctor’s appointment. Farook’s mother became worried when she heard reports about the shooting and tried to call the couple without success.
Ayloush helped organise an impromptu press conference by Farook’s brother-in-law, Farhan Khan, who told reporters he was utterly baffled at what had happened. “I have no idea why would he do that,” Khan said. “I have absolutely no idea. I am in shock myself.”
Speaking to CNN, Ayloush said Farook’s family told him they “had no clue that this could happen”. He said: “The suspect is married, has a six-month-old baby. They have no reason [about] what made him snap. Was it workplace related? Is it mental illness? Is it some twisted ideology? It is really unknown to us. All they [the family] can do is share with everybody sorrow and prayers.”
Ayloush added: “The family is devastated, like all Americans. This is the time for us to express solidarity among all of us Americans in rejecting whatever the motives might have been. There is absolutely no justification for such horrendous behaviour.”
Farook, it emerged, had a passion for guns. In a badly spelled dating profile on the site iMilap.com published about six years ago he mentioned several hobbies, including shooting.
“Enjoy working on vintage and modern cars, read religios books, enjoy eating out sometimes travel and just hang out in back yard doing target pratice with younger sister and friends.”
But before Wednesday, the couple appeared utterly ordinary to those who knew them. Farook had worked at the county health department for five years, with online records indicating he earned about $70,000 (£46,000) a year. He is listed online as an environmental health specialist for San Bernardino County and is believed to have lived locally. He recently wrote an inspection report on a Mexican restaurant in Rialto.
While police said they were unsure whether the pair were engaged or married, reports said they had been married for two years.
Farook visited Saudi Arabia for several weeks in 2013 on the hajj, the annual pilgrimage to Mecca that Muslims are required to take at least once in their lifetime. During the trip he met Malik, a native of Pakistan. Said to be a pharmacist, she reportedly came to the United States on a “fiancée visa” and became a lawful permanent resident.
Patrick Baccari, a fellow health inspector who shared a cubicle with Farook, told the LA Times that the couple appeared to be “living the American dream”.
Farook graduated from California State University with a degree in environmental health in 2009, Heavy reports.
According to court filings, Farook and his siblings sometimes found themselves caught in the middle of violent domestic disputes involving his mother, Rafia, and his 66-year-old father, also named Syed. Rafia filed for legal separation in 2008.
Court filings in 2006 and 2008 show that Rafia filed restraining orders against the elder Syed, describing him as a mentally ill, unstable alcoholic on medication who “threatens to kill himself on a daily basis”. She requested he be ordered to stay away from the family home in Riverside, about a half-hour drive south of the shooting scene in San Bernardino.
The filings allege that the children witnessed several violent episodes. In one incident in February 2008, she claimed: “Syed had a fight with my son and me and he got drunk. I called at 6am to his brother in Chicago and I said he threatening to kill himself [sic]. His brother called the police from Chicago and the police was at my house at 5am and they put him in the county hospital for 72 hours observation.” It was unclear which brother this referred to.
The elder Farook lived with the shooter’s brother, a business taxes representative for the California State Board of Equalization, in Corona, 30 miles south of San Bernardino.
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