FBI: San Bernardino killers were ‘radicalized,’ took target practice
In a chilling twist, authorities also disclosed that a year before the rampage, Syed Farook’s co-workers at the county health department underwent “active shooter” training in the very conference room where he and his wife opened fire on them last Wednesday.
It was not immediately clear whether Farook attended the late-2014 training session on how to react to a workplace gunman, San Bernardino County spokeswoman Felisa Cardona said. It was held for members of the department’s environmental health division, where Farook was a restaurant inspector, she said.
On Monday, two employees who had been in the room during the attack on a holiday luncheon said colleagues tried to do just as they had been trained — drop under the tables and stay quiet so as not to attract attention.
“Unfortunately, the room just didn’t provide a whole lot of protection,” said Corwin Porter, assistant county health director.
Farook, a 28-year-old born in the U.S. to a Pakistani family, and Malik, a 29-year-old immigrant from Pakistan, launched the attack at about the same time Malik pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group on Facebook, authorities said. The Muslim couple were killed hours later in a gunbattle with police.