San Bernardino shooter’s friend arrested for allegedly purchasing assault

FILE – In this December 9, 2015 file photo, a garage door of Enrique Marquez’s home is broken in after an Federal Bureau of Investigation raid, in Riverside, Calif. They paint a vivid picture of Mr. Farook’s efforts to radicalize Mr. Marquez, urging him to listen to speeches by a Qaeda leader and read a magazine published by a Qaeda affiliate that provided bomb-building instructions.

Soon thereafter, Farook introduced Marquez to a radical form of the religion and in the years that followed Marquez – alongside Farook – emerged himself deeper into the radicalized ideologies.

Farook and his wife killed 14 people in the December 2 attack on employees of the San Bernardino County health department.

Assistant Attorney-General John P. Carlin said in a statement that Marquez is charged with conspiring to provide material support to terrorists “for his role in plotting attacks on American soil in 2011 and 2012, attacks which were, fortunately, not carried out”.

Marquez is expected to make an initial appearance in court on Thursday afternoon.

The California man charged on Thursday with supplying the assault rifles used in the San Bernardino attacks spent 11 days being questioned in federal custody.

Proximity brought them together. He told doctors he drank nine bottles of beer before admitting himself because he was “very upset”, that he grew up with Farook and that he was involved in the shooting, according to the complaint.

The suspect was a longtime friend and neighbor to Farook and told officials that he bought the weapons so Farook would not undergo a background check nor be on record as the purchaser.

In a unusual twist, Marquez also became tied to the Farook family when he married the sister of Raheel Farook, Syed Rizwan’s brother. The detailed diagram includes the college campus area that Farook and Marquez were planning to attack. That included buying guns.

Marquez and Farook first hatched a plot to throw pipe bombs into crowds of students at the library or cafeteria at Riverside Community College, where they had been students.

Investigators also found text messages between Marquez and Chernykh saying they were nervous about an upcoming interview with immigration officials. Simultaneously they planned to keep on shooting people as they ran and open fired the drivers during the rush hour on the 91 Freeway.

He is alleged to have been a friend of Farook and his wife and co-conspirator Tashfeen Malik, and was once Farook’s next-door neighbour. Marquez: He did the San Bernardino shooting. “In August 2011, Farook informed Marquez of his interest in joining AQAP in Yemen”.

As part of the plan, Marquez bought two assault rifles – in November 2011 and February 2012.

Farook and Tashfeen Malik died in a shootout with police hours later.

But prosecutors said he was linked to the killings by the guns and explosive materials he bought years earlier.

Marquez told the dispatcher, “My neighbor”. He told the operator that Farook was behind the San Bernardino attack.

Marquez was raised a Catholic, but Farook soon converted him to Islam, according to the affidavit.

He allegedly plotted with shooter Syed Farook on earlier attacks that were never carried out and provided the rifles that were used in the San Bernardino attack.

If convicted, Marquez could face up to 35 years in prison for all three charges. Marquez allegedly said that he would watch for law enforcement and emergency vehicles, and his priority was to shoot law enforcement before shooting life-saving emergency personnel. To me, he was reliable enough for him for storage, like to store my gun. The call indicates the apparently distraught Marquez was also considering suicide.

The operator asks, “Why do you feel like you want to kill yourself?”