FBI pulls items from lake in San Bernardino terrorism investigation, source says
LOS ANGELES – FBI investigators Friday recovered several items from a San Bernardino lake as they looked for electronics and other items left by the shooters who killed 14 people last week, according to law enforcement sources.
The source did not say what was found, but officials expect the search of Seccombe Lake and the canvassing of the surrounding neighborhood to continue.
Investigators received a tip that the shooters may have visited the area on the day of the attack, according to David Bowdich, assistant special agent in charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles field office.
Meanwhile, more details emerged about the investigation into married couple Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik.
Two congressmen, after receiving an intelligence briefing Thursday, said neighbors of the shooters told investigators that they witnessed “suspicious activity” at the couple’s home before the attack but did not report it to authorities.
They didn’t provide details about what those activities were. It’s also unclear which home the officials were talking about. The couple, authorities say, amassed a cache of weapons, ammunition and explosives at their home in Redlands.
The FBI has searched another home linked to the family in Corona. At that location, several neighbors said they saw the residents moving large boxes and furniture out and into SUVs a week before the shootings.
An examination of digital equipment recovered from the home of the couple who killed 14 people in San Bernardino last week has led FBI investigators to believe the shooters were planning an even larger assault, according to federal government sources.
Farook and Malik were in the final planning stages of an assault on a location or building that housed a lot more people than their Dec. 2 attack site, the Inland Regional Center, possibly a nearby school or college, according to federal sources familiar with the widening investigation.
Investigators have based that conclusion on evidence left behind on Farook and Malik’s computers and digital devices, not all of which the couple were able to destroy before they were killed in a firefight with police hours after their rampage, the sources said.
Images of San Bernardino-area schools were found on a cellphone belonging to Farook, according to a law enforcement source. But the source cautioned that Farook may have had a legitimate reason to have the images because his work as a county health inspector involved checking on school dining facilities.