02x10 - The San Bernardino Mass sh**ting

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- We're starting to get
calls that there was

a mass sh**ting at
the Inland Regional

Center in San Bernardino.

- The witnesses
and the accounts that were

coming in were
that there were men

dressed in black with AR-15s.

- Now we have two suspects,
both dressed in black.

- Thought it might be
a domestic terrorism.

- Go, go, go.

- They're hiding in restrooms,
and they're hiding in closets.

- "I'm in a tiny room
with a bunch of people.

We're freaking out."

Please pray for us."

- The shooters
are on the loose.

- The suspects have fled

potentially
in a dark-colored SUV.

- We don't have an eye
on the shooters.

- In the FBI,
we make a lot of headlines.

Drug busts,

mob stings,

t*rror1st takedowns.

- Get down! Get down!

- We understand why people
want to tell stories about us.

- Mark it.

- Freeze!
- FBI.

- FBI!
- Action!

- But they don't know
the half of it.

What really goes down?

We save that for each other

when we're talking
agent-to-agent.

This is "FBI True."

- Kristy Kottis is
a 24-year veteran of the FBI.

She worked gangs,
crimes against children,

as well as human
and drug trafficking.

Kottis was the supervisor
of the FBI'S

threat response squad

overseeing the Bureau's
response to terrorism

threats in New York City.

- Steve, as the special
agent in charge of terrorism

when San Bernardino
mass sh**ting happened,

why don't you take me
from where you were,

how you knew it,
and what you were doing?

- That day was like
any other day.

That morning
as I was parking my car

in the parking lot
at our office,

I got a call
from one of my ASACs.

She says, "Hey, we're starting
to get calls that there was

a mass sh**ting
at the Inland Regional

Center in San Bernardino.

- My ASAC thought
it might be

a domestic terrorism
situation,

because the witnesses
and the accounts that were

coming in
were that there were men

dressed in black with AR-15s.

- Stephen Woolery
joined the Bureau in 1999.

He worked violent crime
before becoming ASAC

for the FBI Joint Terrorism
Task Force in New York.

He was special agent in charge
of the counterterrorism

division in Los Angeles.

- I then got on the phone
with my boss,

and I said, "Hey, activating
our critical incident response,

"b*mb squad, SWAT,
the Joint Terrorism Task Force

so we can get there
as quickly as we can."

And he said,
"Yep, I'm on my way as well."

- Mike, where were you when you
first heard of this incident,

and what's going on?

- So I'm at FBI headquarters,
where I spend my day.

- Mike Kortan served
as chief of the FBI's

international relations unit
in the criminal

investigative division
before leading

the National Press Office.

He retired
as assistant director

of the FBI's Office of Public
Affairs in Washington in 2018.

- And I was
in between meetings.

And somebody came out
of the press office and said,

"Have you seen this thing
on TV?"

- Police are investigating
a report of shots fired

in San Bernardino, California.

At least 20 victims
as a result of this sh**ting.

- The phones start ringing.

It's kind of
the old-fashioned way.

Nobody's emailing or texting;
they're calling.

They're calling into my office.

These are the networks,
the cables, major newspapers.

Everybody's starting
to ask questions.

- As Kortan works the phones
in Washington, D.C.,

Woolery is en route
to the Inland Regional Center

in San Bernardino.

But there's a problem.

- The level of frustration
in the LA traffic

at that moment in time,
I don't have words for.

It's West LA
in all of its glory.

I activated
my Code 3 equipment.

- Did you put the disco
strobes on and everything?

- I turned on everything.

It was almost
as if everyone had

Code 3 equipment, because
no one got out of the way.

- So as you're spending
all this quality time

on the highway
in bumper-to-bumper traffic,

what are you hearing
from the office,

from your assets on the ground?

- A lot of what's happening
right now,

to sum it up,
it's just chaos.

All I want to do is get there.

I want to see it, I want to
hear it, I want to feel it.

- Two hours after
the g*nf*re begins,

Woolery finally makes it
to the unified command center

in San Bernardino,
where he starts to learn

more about the attack.

- The business of
the Inland Regional Center

is to provide clinical
psychological counseling,

health care-type services.

It was a Christmas party
for the San Bernardino County

Health Inspection Division.

Christmas party started
around 9:00 or so.

We started getting
the calls of an active sh**ter

at that conference room.

- Initial reports were
there were three shooters.

And then as we started actually
talking to the witnesses,

there were two shooters.

One individual
entered the north door

and fired as*ault r*fle rounds
indiscriminately at the folks

inside the conference room,
and then a second sh**ter

came in through
the south entrance.

They fired what
amounts to over 100 rounds

of AR-15
.223-caliber b*ll*ts

into the conference room.

- They're sh**ting,
and everyone's running.

They're running in the back.

They're hiding in restrooms,
and they're hiding in closets.

- "I'm in a tiny room
with a bunch of people.

"We're freaking out.

Please pray for us."

- She's so scared.

She kept saying,
"I'm so scared right now."

- "sh**ting at my work.

"People shot.

In the office
waiting for cops."

- The Inland Regional Center--

it's a campus, so there's
three main buildings.

And this campus was very busy.

There's a lot of offices there.

- And at this point, is anybody
talking about, who is it?

- Yep.

- What are they saying?

- We start to get
some indication of who

one of the shooters could be.

- One of the witnesses
inside the conference room

told us that the mannerism
and the stature of the sh**ter

reminded him of the colleague,
Syed Rizwan Farook.

He was a health inspector.

He worked with these folks
for five years.

It was also noted
that Syed Farook

was at the Christmas party.

- Wow.
Unbelievable.

- And other witnesses reported
that the second sh**ter

could have been a woman.

The second sh**ter
was of smaller stature.

Her clothing was baggier.

She was just
of a smaller build.

And we later learned Farook
was married to a woman

named Tashfeen Malik.

- As investigators
try to figure out

who the shooters are,
they have a more

pressing question to answer--

where are they?

- The main thing
that we're hearing

is that the shooters
are on the loose.

- Sir, we're being
advised that one

suspect fled in a black SUV
westbound from the location.

- We don't have
an eye on the shooters.

We don't know where they are.

- How did that feel?

- Pretty vulnerable.

Because typically when these
types of mass shootings

play out, there's some
martyrdom involved,

or there's a confrontation
or a shootout.

It was troublesome for me.

It was troublesome
for the community.

There were 14 lost souls
that were k*lled,

then there were 22 whose bodies
will never be the same.

They were wounded.

- Mike, what's happening
at headquarters?

- We're working closely
with counterterrorism.

We're on standby.

Is there anything
we can put out that will

help advance this thing?

Are we at a point
or are we not at a point

where publicizing
the description of the vehicle

across the media,
would that be helpful?

It's a delicate balance
in terms

of what the FBI releases.

One, it's got to be accurate.

Two, it's got to be, you know,
helpful to the investigation.

You don't want to do
anything that could cause,

you know,
the bad guys, as you said,

behave in a particular way
they might not otherwise do.

- The suspects have fled
potentially

in a dark-colored SUV.

We do not have
any identification

on who those suspects are.

We do not know what the
motive is for the sh**ting

at this point.

- News of the fleeing SUV sets
off a flurry of calls to 911.

- 911 calls were coming in
fast and furious.

But there was one caller
in particular.

- This caller
was so clear and determined

to share this information
that he didn't have to write

down the Utah license plate.

He remembered it
from his memory.

- Wow.

- And he was able to
share that with us.

- Once you get the
license plate, what happens?

- So an analyst takes
that information

and runs it in NCIC,
and the plate and the vehicle

come back to
Enterprise Rental out of Utah.

And the name on the rental
was Syed Rizwan Farook.

With that information,
along with some of the witness

accounts and a good address,

they go to his home
in Redlands.

- Two plainclothes narcotics
officers get the call

and are the first ones
on the scene.

- They went to the house.

And as they arrived there,
they saw

the SUV with that Utah license
plate leave the residence.

The narcotics detectives
wave down a marked unit,

and it's that
marked unit that then gets

behind the suspect vehicle.

And they were hoping to do
a much more coordinated stop.

But before they could get all
the marked units in place,

she's got an AR-15 r*fle,

and she's just spraying
marked units.

- Before they could activate
their code red equipment,

"shots fired"
goes out over the radio.

Rizwan then parks the vehicle.

- Oh, .

Oh my gosh!

- Tashfeen is just
indiscriminately

firing the AR-15.

- Guys, they're just-- shot
out my house right now,

there's cops all over
the yard.

Holy .

- Rizwan then gets
out of the car

and starts firing his AR-15.

- You're in the unified command
post while this is going on?

- I'm hearing
all this from the radio.

Then I'm on a conference call
with the FBI deputy director

and all the FBI
deputy director executives,

and I'm describing to them that
this is a rolling gunfight.

- Copy, one suspect so far,
male in black clothing.

He's still firing rounds.

- All this
is playing out in the news.

By this time,
there's a lot of reporters

out there, a lot of cameras.

- Got multiple officers here.

We got officers running here
back eastbound

chasing now on foot.

Look at all those units here.

This is where a suspect is at.

- Marked units are responding.

There were a lot of officers
that engaged in the shootout.

After four minutes,
after 400 rounds of g*nf*re,

Tashfeen is determined
to be deceased

as she sat in the back
of the SUV.

And then Rizwan had
actually exited the SUV,

and he at first used an AR-15
as his choice of weapon.

He became incapacitated.

He then swung
the AR-15 away,

and he went
for his 9-millimeter.

That's when he
was struck several times

and succumbed to his wounds.

- Farook opened fire.

He was hit 26 times,
his wife 15 times.

- With the shooters
taken out by law enforcement,

officers on the
scene search the SUV

and make a chilling discovery.

- Inside the vehicle
where Tashfeen was located,

there was
a remote control device.

We learned
from the FBI SWAT team

there was a bag
that was on the table

in the conference room,
the scene of the sh**ting.

And inside that bag,
we located three pipe bombs.

These three pipe bombs
were connected by Christmas

tree lights, wiring.

They asked for our b*mb
squad to come in and render

the bag and its contents safe.

- And what
are you thinking, Steve?

You're like--

- Our thought was that the
reason why Rizwan and Tashfeen

were driving around
San Bernardino area

was that their
intent was to use

that remote control
device to detonate

the pipe bombs remotely.

The theory is that a
secondary attack is always

meant for first responders.

- Try to relax, everyone.
Try to relax.

I'll take a b*llet before
you do, that's for damn sure.

Just be cool, OK?

- The folks that are
coming in to triage

and to get folks out
of there to save lives.

The idea is that that
secondary attack is

to thwart the saving of lives.

- You're getting
this information.

When is the building
declared clear and safe

and you're going to get
your first look inside?

- We went inside.

- The fire alarm
was going off.

The smell of gunpowder--

it was just chaos.

30 years of being
in this type of work,

I expected to see carnage.

I expected to see bodies thrown
across the room just in,

you know, sort of horrific--

- Like a human pileup.

- Yeah.

Instead what I saw
was-- and it was

mostly because of
the water sprinklers

had rinsed away the blood.

Those deceased individuals,
those victims that were dead--

it was as if
they were sleeping.

There was no blood.

There was no signs
of horror or terror.

They just looked like
they were sleeping.

- Investigators searched
the Farooks' apartment

looking for clues
about motives

and possible accomplices.

- As you can see behind me,
there is police tape.

It is evacuated.

That's because the
FBI is processing

the crime scene,
which is an apartment

where the suspects lived.

Throughout the day, police
will be here at the scene

processing the inside
of that apartment.

- At the completion
of the FBI-led search

of the suspects' residence,
which took about 12 hours,

we turn the ownership
back to the landlord.

And as it turns out,
the landlord

sort of offered tours,
if you will,

to all the news organizations.

- It's your first look inside
the home of the suspected

San Bernardino t*rrorists.

The patio doors were smashed
when the FBI raided the home

on the night of the m*ssacre.

- It got to be--
it was quite a circus.

And some, shall we say,
news organizations

were very invasive
in their press coverage

looking at, you know,
personal mementos,

photos of the children,
documents

without really knowing
what they were

and exposing that
to the world.

- Reporters pushed
through the front door

to the two-bedroom apartment
revealing their domestic

details live on TV.

- Social Security cards.

- A Quran sitting on a table.

- Bank statements showing
a balance of almost $64,000.

- A burrito half-eaten.

- And to depict
those kind of images

was really hurtful to many.

- As you guys are unfolding
this investigation,

you find out that Farook
and his wife, they have a baby.

What kind of evil mindset
is willing to let

a baby become an orphan?

- These same colleagues
gave him a baby shower.

- So I just want
to understand this again.

This individual is
attending a Christmas party

with people who care
enough about them

to give them a baby shower?

- Yes.

- Syed Farook's
colleagues had no idea

he was hiding a dark secret.

- Syed, though,
he had demonstrated

anti-U.S. grievances,

these Islamist
extremist ideology for years.

And in fact,
he looked for a wife

that was as devout
or more devout

than he was
in his extremist ideology

that could partner with him
to carry out what happened.

He traveled to Saudi Arabia.

He was introduced
to Tashfeen online.

Once he married her,
he brought her back

and brought her
into his family.

She was so devout
that she was fully covered.

And it was a week
before the sh**ting

is when they had dinner,
and she was no longer covered.

They were really meeting
her for the first time.

- Wow.

- Sources tell
CBS 2 the suspects

were married for two years.

Here's what we
know about Farook.

He's 28 years old.

He was born
in the United States,

and he worked as an
environmental health

specialist
with the San Bernardino

County Health Department.

He was employed
with them for five years

and most recently working
as a swimming pool inspector.

- The folks that
worked with him knew

that he was a devout Muslim.

And we later learned that
he just abhorred Christmas

parties and thought that,
you know,

only infidels attend
Christmas parties.

- Hmm.

- Investigators believe the
couple was inspired by !sis

to carry out the attack.

They found online statements
that Malik had written a year

before the sh**ting,
when Farook had

been required to go
to a similar holiday

event with his coworkers.

- Was upset about him
having to participate

in an event of that
nature, and that Muslims

should not participate
in what are predominantly

Christian events.

- That's unbelievable,
the loss.

- Yeah.

- Wow.

- All I could do in the
shower that night was cry.

That's all I could do.

It just impacted me
in a way that it

really-- you start
to understand

post-traumatic stress disorder.

The San Bernardino newspaper,
the front page,

they had all the pictures
of the 14 individuals

that were k*lled
on December 2nd.

I just sort of look at that,
like,

14 souls were taken from us.

I laminated that front page so
that I could see it every day,

and it would help me
and remind me--

I'll never forget.

- How did this change
that community?

- There's always
this feeling when

something like this
happens in a-- you know,

a small community.

There's this sense that nothing
like that would happen here.

How could this happen in
San Bernardino, California?

The reality is that no
community, no city,

no place is immune
from this type of violence.

- It was a devastating event.

The way it was projected
across this country

and around the world,
it brought attention

to mass shootings, it brought
attention to the challenges,

I think,
of keeping this country safe.

So I think
it was something that--

it will always stay with us
in a very, very important way.

It's why we do what we do.