Police find things during search for San Bernardino killers’ hard drive, but

Thomson ReutersA FBI diver searches the water at Seccombe Lake Park after the shooting earlier this month in San Bernardino, California SAN BERNARDINO, Calif. (Reuters) – FBI divers picked through the bottom of a San Bernardino lake on Saturday for a third day, seeking evidence related to a married couple who massacred 14 people at a holiday party, in what the bureau has called an act of terror inspired by Islamic State.

The couple had tried to cover their tracks by destroying computer equipment and cell phones, authorities said. They were tipped that the small lake in a park about 3 miles from where the shootings happened might hold the hard drive, according to a law enforcement official briefed on the investigation but not authorized to speak publicly about the case.

Though it does not appear the hard drive was found in the lake, investigators have another means of gathering data from the drive: Internet service providers can retrieve months of records of Internet activity linked to the IP address associated with the killers, the law enforcement source said.

A friend of Enrique Marquez said the former neighbor of San Bernardino shooter Syed Farook was paid to marry a Russian woman, ABC News reports.

He checked himself in to a mental health facility after the attack and has not been charged with a crime. But FBI Director James Comey has said there was no evidence the militant group was aware of them prior to their attack. Malik had been living in Pakistan and visiting family in Saudi Arabia before she passed the background check and entered the U.S.in July 2014 with Farook, a USA citizen whose family was originally from Pakistan. “No one knows her more than me”.

Federal officials said that Tashfeen also had two in-person interviews, the first by a consular officer in Pakistan, and the second by an immigration officer in the USA when she applied for her green card. The date that these types of reviews began is not clear, but it was after Malik was considered, the source said. If that is confirmed, it would mark the most lethal such attack on USA soil since September 11, 2001.

In the social media era, it seems impossible that something like a supportive tweet or post would go unnoticed during the vetting process.

According to a local report, Jennifer Calderon, manager of the Circle K convenience store at the Valero gas station at Third Street and Waterman Avenue, said police told her the day after the attack that the shooters went inside the store 40 minutes after the attack.

The New York Times reported that it wasn’t until after the December 2nd attack on the Inland Regional Center, which left 14 people dead and another 21 people injured, that law enforcement officials discovered the old (and previously unreported) posts.

“The review has been ordered and we need to look at whether there are means, and whether we should be, and how we can do it”, he said.