More than 20 officers were involved in a gun battle with the suspects in the San Bernardino terrorist attack. A new report details their stories
Just before noon on Dec. 2, 2015,
As police scrambled in the aftermath of
As the pursuit wound its way into a neighborhood of homes and warehouses, a gun battle erupted between police and the suspects, one in which 22 officers from various agencies would ultimately participate.
On Thursday, the San Bernardino County district attorney’s office issued a report finding each officer’s use of force legally justified. While much of what happened that day has been well documented in various reports and public comments, this latest one offers new details specifically about the gun battle on the streets of San Bernardino and the perspective, gleaned from interviews, of each officer involved.
Here are a few things of note from the report:
More than 20 officers fired their weapons during the gun battle on San Bernardino Avenue.
The report describes a chaotic scene with officers from agencies around the region rushing to join the fight and bullets bouncing off the street in the middle of the residential neighborhood.
“During the shootout, the suspects fired about 80 rifle rounds and 1 handgun round and law enforcement fired about 440 rounds from rifles, shotguns, and handguns,” the report says.
“Numerous unexpended rounds of ammunition, fired cartridge casings, fired shotgun shells, and bullets and bullet fragments were discovered inside and around vehicles, on the streets, and in residential yards. Multiple nearby homes and civilian cars were struck by bullets.”
But there were no civilian injuries during the shootout.
Some officers, such as Sgt. Andy Capps of the Redlands Police Department, had been tailing Farook and Malik when, as Capps put it in an interview conducted the night of the attack, they “realized that he and the other law enforcement vehicles were taking gunfire from the rear of the SUV.”
Other officers joined in the pursuit when they learned from radio traffic that their colleagues were under fire. Some of them, like the suspects, were equipped with rifles; others had handguns. At times, some officers’ weapons malfunctioned while others ran out of ammunition, according to the report.
This account, included in the report and based on Capps’ interview, details how the battle started:
“As the SUV stopped it erupted in gunfire from within the vehicle. Sgt. Capps retrieved his AR-15 from the rifle rack of his vehicle. He exited his vehicle and took a position behind the right rear tire, utilizing his vehicle for protection….
“Sgt. Capps could hear gunfire and saw muzzle flashes coming from the suspect vehicle. Capps fired at the SUV from a kneeling position behind his unit. He then saw one of the suspects exit the vehicle with what looked like a long rifle. He saw the suspect began to engage the sheriff’s deputy parked to the north in a gun battle….
“Capps continued to fire back at the suspects, attempting to take precise shots at both suspects inside and outside the SUV. The gun battle lasted some time as other officers joined in.”
When Capps ran out of ammunition, the officers lined up behind him began taking turns shooting at the SUV, according to the report.
In the middle of the battle, officers devised and executed a plan to rescue a deputy who was coming under heavy fire.
San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Deputy Shaun Wallen was among the first to engage in the gun battle with Farook and Malik.
According to Wallen’s account, provided to investigators just before 9 p.m. the night of the attack, after the SUV stopped, Farook got out and started running across the street, shooting at Wallen with a rifle.
“Farook and Deputy Wallen were about 80 feet apart when they engaged in a gun battle in the middle of San Bernardino Avenue,” the report says. “As Farook appeared around the driver’s side of Wallen’s unit, he was still firing at the deputy. Deputy Wallen continued firing back at Farook.”
Eventually, Farook, apparently injured, sat on the ground but continued shooting with the rifle, according to the report.
“Farook transitioned to a handgun that he pulled from a holster on his right thigh [and] continued to fire at Wallen from a seated position with the handgun,” the report says. “Wallen shifted his position and then saw that Farook had fallen to the ground and was no longer firing at him.”
Malik, however, was still firing on officers from the SUV.
San Bernardino police Officer Nicolas Koahou saw Wallen crouched near the trunk of his vehicle and, realizing he was in a “horrible position,” tried to get Wallen to safety, the report says. But as Koahou ran toward Wallen, he felt pain on the outside of his left thigh and realized he had been shot. Even after he was injured, Koahou continued firing on the SUV.
When San Bernardino police Officer Brian Olvera arrived at the scene, he also began to worry about Wallen, who was still under fire and taking cover behind a car that was riddled with bullet holes and had flat tires.
Olvera and other officers and deputies hatched a plan to get Wallen to safety by driving a vehicle slowly up to him while Olvera and other officers fired in the suspects’ direction, giving them cover so that Wallen could run to safety behind the approaching vehicle.
“When the sheriff vehicle got within about 10 yards of Deputy Wallen, he ran for cover behind the vehicle,” the report says. “All Officer Olvera’s fired rounds came in the rescue attempt of Deputy Wallen.”
Farook was shot 27 times; Malik was shot 15 times.
Farook’s body was found on San Bernardino Avenue. He was wearing a tactical vest and a thigh holster with a loaded 9-millimeter semiautomatic pistol. A rifle was slung around his body, the report says.
“The rifle had been modified to fire fully automatic, which it could not do because the modification was done incorrectly,” the report says.
An autopsy determined that Farook had “27 discernible gunshot entry wounds” to his chin and neck, chest, thighs, legs, arms, feet and buttocks.
Malik’s body was inside the SUV. She was also heavily armed. The autopsy determined she had been shot at least 15 times.
For each of the officers involved in the shooting, the report determined that the “use of deadly force was a proper exercise of his right of self-defense and the defense of others” — and therefore legally justified.
“Faced with two heavily armed suspects who had already executed 14 innocent unarmed civilians and critically injured 22 others, the officers involved put their lives at risk to prevent what may have been a second mass shooting,” the report says.
“Despite the suspects being heavily armed and completely reckless in shooting at law enforcement on a crowded residential street, no more civilians or law enforcement were killed.”
Twitter: @palomaesquivel
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