San Bernardino attack: Police search lake

Authorities search a lake Thursday Dec. 10, 2015 near the site of last week’s mass shooting in San Bernardino. Frank Kelly, of Victorville, Calif., pays his respects at a makeshift memorial near the Inland Regional Center, the site of last week’s fatal shooting that killed multiple people, Wednesday, Dec. 9, 2015, in San Bernardino, Calif.

Investigators are trying to determine if Farook’s path toward extremism predated 2013 and whether it led to plans to launch an attack in 2012, according to two people familiar with the investigation who were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Islamic militant groups ignored contact attempts from Malik in the months before she and her husband killed 14 people at a California holiday party, probably because they feared getting caught in a U.S. law enforcement sting, United States government sources said.

The mother of Enrique Marquez said she is overwhelmed by the investigation into her son’s growing links to the man at the center of the terrorist attack at a San Bernardino office building last week.

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.

Mr Comey told the senate judiciary committee that the FBI investigation has shown that the couple were “radicalised before they started courting or dating each other online”. The man was working as a county health inspector, so it was basically his job to check on school dining facilities. Since the shootings, he has waived his Miranda rights, cooperated with investigators and provided information, according to the officials.

State Department spokesman John Kirby said on CNN on Thursday that applicants for fiancée visas go through a screening process that includes fingerprinting, a series of background checks and a face-to-face interview while the other future spouse in the United States is checked by the Department of Homeland Security. The plot would have targeted the Los Angeles area.

“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. He and Farook were friends who liked fixing up cars together in their driveways, but their ties ran deeper – and, authorities say, had more sinister intentions. But the Islamic Society of Corona-Norco, where Marquez was allegedly married, said his attendance was spotty.

Comey said the precise origins of the couple’s radicalization were as yet unknown but appeared to predate the rise of Islamic State, the militant group that has seized vast swaths of Iraq and Syria and last month claimed responsibility for the assaults on Paris that left 130 dead.

Enrique Marquez, who legally bought the weapons at least three years ago, and gunman Syed Rizwan Farook had a sister-in-law in common, according to marriage records.

Mr Comey praised the American Muslims who inform the Federal Bureau of Investigation on suspicious behavior and asked that they come forward if they witness or suspect a hate crime so that it can be properly investigated.

Marquez’s wife also has a connection to the Farook family, which is leading investigators down yet another road.

In her native Spanish she said that it’s been a very hard week, with unspeakable pressure and stress.

Chacon was outside with one of her sons, cleaning up the broken glass and twisted panels of their garage door.