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Motive for San Bernardino Shootings Sought; Male Shooter Apparently Hed Been Radicalized; Annual Christmas Tree Lighting Held in Washington, DC; Germany Facing Decision on Joining ISIS Fight. Aired 3-4a ET
Aired December 04, 2015 - 03:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[03:00:01]
JOHN VAUSE, CNN INTERNATIONAL NEWSROOM HOST: Investigators searching for a motive as they reveal new details about the couple behind the mass shooting and their arsenal.
NATALIE ALLEN, CNN INTERNATIONAL NEWSROOM HOST: And we are learning more about the victims and those they left behind.
You're watching special coverage of the mass shooting in California. Hello, everyone. I am Natalie Allen at CNN Center, Atlanta.
VAUSE: I like to welcome everybody in the United States and all around the world. I am John Vause in San Bernardino, and we begin with new details about the man and woman who carried out that deadly shooting. Sources say Syed Rizwan Farook was apparently radicalized. He'd been in touch with a number of people under investigation by the FBI for international terrorism. Farook and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, had a dozen of pipe bombs and a stockpile of ammunition at their home. Investigators say the heavily armed couple fired between 65 and 75 rounds at a holiday party on Wednesday, killing 14 people, wounding 21 others.
Investigators say they have found two smashed cell phones in a trash can near one crime scene, and they have recovered a computer from the couple's home but someone had removed the hard drive.
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VAN PEREZ, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: This may be a sign, investigators believe, that the two shooters were trying to hide their tracks and make it difficult for investigators to figure out who they were communicating with in the days leading up to Wednesday's massacre. The two cell phones were recovered from a garbage can near one of the three crime scenes. Now the work for FBI technicians is to try to recover information from the cell phones, as well as from computers that were found at the home of the two shooters.
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VAUSE: Justice Correspondent Evan Perez there. Anderson Cooper takes a closer look at some of the other details we've been learning about the shooters and the investigation, including those possible ties to terrorism.
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ANDERSON COOPER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You're watching the last images of the killers in their SUV before they're shot to death in a hail of gunfire.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh my gosh.
COOPER: Recorded by a resident just down the street from where Syed Farook and his wife Tashfeen Malik made their last stand with law enforcement.
JARROD BURGUAN, SAN BERNARDINO POLICE: They opened fire first. Rounds came out of the back of the car from the female that was in the back firing through the back of the SUV at the police vehicles, and then the male suspect who was the driver, got out and fired at officers from the street as well.
COOPER: The shootout in real time heard over police radio.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: One guy down. There's one guy in the back of a car.
COOPER: We now know Farook and his wife fired close to 80 rounds, 23 officers returned fire killing the couple on the scene, and today we learned they had an arsenal in that SUV.
BURGUAN: They had over 1400, .223 caliber rounds that were available to them, and they had over 200 .9 millimeter rounds. They had the .223 assault style rifles with them.
COOPER: And authorities would find an even bigger arsenal at the couple's home. Thousands of rifle rounds, pistol rounds, 12 pipe bombs and tools used to make IEDs. Jason Simmons says his mother is one of Farook neighbor. How did they seem to you?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They seemed like a normal family.
COOPER: Law enforcement sources tell CNN it appears Farook, a U.S. citizen was radicalized, and he was in touch with more than one terrorism suspect that the FBI was already investigating. It's unclear if those suspects were overseas or lived in the United States. As of now, law enforcement is still unwilling to state a definitive motive for this mass killing. We do know that a holiday party was underway at the Inland Regional Center yesterday when Farook left under duress. According to law enforcement, when he returned, he and his wife dressed in tactical gear, sprayed the room with bullets and left behind a homemade bomb.
BURGUAN: The suspects when they entered fired somewhere between 65 and 75 rounds from their rifles at the scene. We did locate the one pipe bomb, there was actually three pipe bombs combined into one that had a remote car type remote control device that appears not to have worked in this case. COOPER: They fled the scene in that black SUV, and authorities say a
witness to the massacre identified Farook which led them to his home. While police were there, the SUV passed by the house and then sped off. It led to this, the end of the chase and the beginning of the larger investigation, Anderson Cooper, CNN, San Bernardino.
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[03:05:01]
VAUSE: And the coroner here has released the names of the 14 people killed on Wednesday. Among them is 52-year-old Nicholas Thalasinos, he was an employee of the County Environmental Health Department. Forty year old Robert Adams was a husband and a father of a 20-month- old daughter, his family says they're planning their first trip to Disneyland together, 37-year-old Michael Wetzel also worked at the Environmental Health Department. He leaves behind a wife and six children. Police say the 14 people killed, 12 were county employees. There were about 80 people attending the party when the shooting happened.
ALLEN: Just that picture of those six children and the mom who are left behind, so sad.
Loved ones of those who died are sharing some stories of their husbands, wives, partners, sisters, and brothers, 42-year-old Daniel Kaufman is among them. He helped people learn job skills at the Inland Regional Center. Kaufman's boyfriend, Ryan Reyes, shared what he wants the world to know about Daniel.
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