Early reports: Mass shooting in San Bernardino

As many as five victims of the San Bernardino shooting remain hospitalized, according to recent updates from officials.

Loma Linda University Medical Center spokeswoman Briana Pastorino said the hospital still had four patients as of Monday night. Two are in critical but stable condition; the other two are in fair condition, she said.

The hospital initially received five patients in connection with the shooting, but one was discharged Thursday, Pastorino said.

At a press conference Monday morning, officials at Arrowhead Regional Medical Center said they received six shooting victims, only one of which remained in the hospital.

San Antonio Regional Hospital also received two shooting victims, both of whom have been discharged.

— Matt Stevens

Griselda Reisinger, a former co-worker of the Syed Farook, said Farook flew under the radar at San Bernardino County's relatively small public health department.

“He was very quiet,” said Reisinger, who worked for 11 years as an environmental inspector. “I would say hi and bye, but we never engaged him in conversation. He didn’t say much at all.”

Law enforcement sources have said a person named Syed Farook is a suspect in the case, but have not identified him as the Syed Farook who worked for the public health department.

Reisinger said she remembered Farook attending last year's holiday party, held in the same conference room.

She heard from colleagues that the department held a baby shower for Farook and that he recently returned from paternity leave.

Reisinger left the job in May. She said the department was in turmoil, with many workers leaving over the last year because of problems with management.

— Stephen Ceasar

Police are preparing to evacuate residents in a Redlands neighborhood where one of the identified suspects is believed to have lived.

Hours after police said they were serving a search warrant on a residence in Redlands, police continued to warn bystanders of potential dangers on the scene.

Law enforcement officials used a battering ram to break open the door of the townhouse where a person with the same name as one of the identified suspects is believed to have resided.

Officials also sent a SWAT team robot into the home, according to reporters on the scene.

Times staff writer Kate Mather reported hearing what sounded like flash-bangs going off at the residence.

Luis Gutierrez was dropping his son off at day care when his wife, Janet Gutierrez, called. She works with low-income families who have autistic children and was in the building that was attacked in San Bernardino on Wednesday.

"All I heard was, 'There's a shooter,' " he said. "Once I heard that, I went into panic mode."

He told her to get in a room, shut the door, hide. Through an upstairs window, she said she could see a gunman below. He was dressed in all black, wearing a mask, carrying "a really big gun" and firing into the first floor.

Janet Gutierrez and her co-workers flipped a desk, pushed it against the door and hoped the gunman wouldn't come in.

"She was screaming and shouting," Luis Gutierrez said, "and the phone cut off."

Luis Gutierrez dropped his son off at his parents' home, and he and his father drove as close as they could, ending up at Waterman Avenue and Orange Show Road, where the police perimeter was setting up. Media were nearby, and he prayed for his wife and her colleagues as he heard reports of fatalities.

Janet Gutierrez called him in the afternoon, using a friend's phone; her battery had run out while they were speaking. She had been escorted out of the building by police and was being interviewed.

She was unhurt.

"She's just in shock," Luis Gutierrez said. "It's a real nightmare right now."

He was crying -- even hours later, recounting the morning's events was hard.

But he had a plan for when he sees his wife:

— Hailey Branson-Potts

Faith Sanders stood outside a cordoned-off Redlands neighborhood Wednesday with other residents awaiting word when her neighbors could go back to their homes.

“You can’t tell me anything can you?” she asked a San Bernardino County sheriff’s deputy who approached the perimeter.

“No," he replied. "All I can tell is it's related to the shooting in San Bernardino." Investigators would probably be there all night, he added.

About 4 p.m., Sanders said, she was inside her home and heard commotion outside. She went outside and saw a police helicopter hovering above and police in tactical gear with helmets and guns drawn.

Sanders pulled out her phone and started snapping photos. The former Loma Linda hospital employee had been chatting with her old co-workers all day after their facility was evacuated after a bomb threat.

“I’ve been stuck to the TV all day. I was shocked because I was watching it there, then all of a sudden it’s here,” she said.

About 5 p.m., Sanders said, the police made their way into an apartment complex down the street through the back.

In this neighborhood, white picket fences separate well-manicured lawns from the streets where residents jog and walk without fear. In five years, Sanders said, she’s never seen anything like what happened Wednesday.

-- Kate Mather and Joe Serna

As night fell, Mindy Velasco paced her office at InsideOut Writers, a program based in East Hollywood that conducts writing classes for incarcerated youth.

She called phone number after phone number for hospitals, police, evacuee centers -- any place that might have information about her niece, Yvette Velasco.

But no one knew anything about Yvette Velasco's whereabouts.

In her late 20s, Yvette Velasco works for the San Bernardino County health department in a unit responsible for restaurant inspections. She had told her family she would be attending a work holiday banquet.

"I'm fearing the worst," Mindy Velasco said, her voice breaking. "Her sister asked me to pray because we know she was there."

"Yvette is usually in constant touch with us. She would definitely be in contact after something like this," Mindy Velasco said. "But, as of now, there is nothing."

— Garrett Therolf

Two law enforcement sources identified one of the suspects in the San Bernardino shooting as Syed Farook.

According to public records, a Syed R. Farook worked as an environmental health specialist for San Bernardino County. It's unclear whether that is the same person connected to the attack. The shooting occurred at an event for the county's public health department.

Two other federal law enforcement sources, while not revealing the name of the suspect they were referring to, said he was an American citizen.

-- Richard Serrano and Richard Winton

At the Hernandez Community Center, where families and friends were told to come to get information on loved ones, buses continued to arrive as darkness set over San Bernardino. Inland Regional Center workers and others who had been present during the attacks looked weary and traumatized as they were guided off the buses, past a growing crowd of television crews, and into a gymnasium, where food was being provided. Probation Department officers stood guard. Reporters were not allowed into the building.

Jeff Lantosh, a 26-year-old building inspector, didn't have any family members working at the Inland Regional Center. But he had been following the news all day and decided to stop here to show his support -- for the victims and his city, which has been wracked by crime and poverty.

"We've definitely gone through some rough times," he said. "I think people have forgotten about us as a city."

— Alan Zarembo

Officials found suspicious items, one that may be an explosive device, while searching the Inland Regional Center, San Bernardino Police Chief Jarrod Burguan said.

Regarding reports of an explosive device thrown from an SUV, Burguan said: “There was a report that they potentially threw what was identified as a pipe bomb. ... It was not an explosive.”

-- Rong-Gong Lin II

Coroner's investigators were called to the scenes of this morning's mass shooting at the Inland Regional Center and of this afternoon's shootout between suspects and police, but they have not yet identified the dead or removed their bodies, said Robert Shaw, lead supervising deputy coroner for the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department.

The bodies of the other victims remain in the building, Shaw said. Coroner’s investigators have not yet been allowed inside Inland Regional Center to recover the bodies because authorities want to preserve the integrity of the crime scene and allow for the collection of evidence.

The coroner will not release names, ages or other information about the victims until their relatives are notified, Shaw said. He expects many of the notifications to take place by Thursday.

Anyone who thinks a relative was killed or wounded is asked to call a family assistance hotline at (800) 637-6653. The coroner's division is setting up a center at the Hampton Inn & Suites in nearby Highland to notify families in person. Counselors will be on hand, Shaw said.

— Tony Barboza

The lead gunman connected to the mass shooting in San Bernardino is believed to be a U.S. citizen, according to a federal law enforcement source speaking on condition of anonymity.

The source added that links to international terrorism are still on the table, however, as the assailants could have been encouraged by a foreign terror group.

— Rick Serrano

--Two people, a man and a woman, are dead after a confrontation with police.

-- A third person seen running away from the scene has been detained, but it's not clear if he is connected to the shootings.

--Both deceased suspects were inside a dark SUV that was the subject of a police pursuit after officers arrived to investigate a home in Redlands.

--The suspects in the SUV were dressed in "assault-style clothing" and were armed with assault rifles and handguns, officials said.

-- Police said they are still clearing the Inland Regional Center where the mass shooting occurred and have found what they believe is an explosive device.

-- While initial reports said the attackers had thrown explosive devices, police said an object that was thrown was not a bomb.

San Bernardino police are serving a warrant in the nearby city of Redlands that is related to Wednesday's shooting, a Redlands city spokesman told The Times.

According to the Associated Press, it is a search warrant and is being delivered to a home.

— Richard Winton

Outside the Hernandez Community Center, families waited to be reunited with relatives who had been at the Inland Regional Center during the attack.

Greg Johnson smoked a cigarette and paced the sidewalk, hoping his 42-year-old nephew, Daniel Kaufman, who works in the coffee shop, would arrive on one of the school buses delivering the survivors.

"We haven't been able to get ahold of him," he said. They're saying it could be a couple of hours." Johnson said his family was told that witnesses were being interviewed before being transferred.

— Alan Zarembo