Early reports part two: Mass shooting in San Bernardino

Warning that Congress has become “complicit” in gun violence with its inaction, Senate Democrats forced votes Thursday on measures to curb gun sales, which failed amid mostly Republican opposition.

One proposal from Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) would have added suspected terrorists to the list of individuals blocked from buying firearms. Another that would have closed the so-called gun show loophole that allows buyers to escape background checks won broader GOP support, but not enough to pass.

“How can we live with ourselves, for failing to do the things we know will reduce gun violence?” said Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.).

“We are complicit through our inaction,” he said. “It is despicable. For far too long we have done nothing, even as gun violence shakes our nation to its core.”

Passage was a long-shot in the face of opposition from the gun lobby, including the National Rifle Assn., which continues to hold sway over lawmakers.

The last major effort in Congress, after the 2012 mass shooting of elementary school children in Newtown, Conn., failed to change gun laws, as did the 2011 shooting of then-Rep. Gabrielle Giffords as she met with constituents outside a Tuscon grocery store.

Republicans offered alternatives Thursday that Democrats rejected as weak, and some senators objected to tampering with the broader GOP package to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

But mostly GOP leaders, including House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.), have said the focus should be on mental health reforms.

Democratic Sen. Christopher S. Murphy of Connecticut said that while prayers and good wishes like those he received in the aftermath of the Newtown school shooting are appreciated, Thursday’s votes were intended to show Americans there are “sane people” in Washington who know that gun laws must change.

“Members of Congress don’t get paid to send out sympathy tweets. Members of Congress get paid to change policy,” Murphy said. “In this Congress, we’re not even trying, we’re not even making an attempt, and that’s offensive.”

— Lisa Mascaro

Gov. Jerry Brown had been scheduled to leave for Paris for the climate talks , but will head south first, his top aide tweeted.

This evening Brown will be briefed by local, state and federal law enforcement and then speak to the press.

— Christina Bellantoni

The fact that more than one assailant appeared to have taken part in the massacre told law enforcement officials that something unusual was at play.

In the scores of mass shootings that have occurred in the U.S. over the last 15 years, nearly all of them have involved an attacker acting alone.

And the Inland Regional Center makes for a different kind of target.

"The target is a very soft target. The whole thing seems strange," said Ron Avi Astor, a behavioral health professor and mass shooting expert at USC. "What meaning does the place have and why kill so many people there?

"There's more to this story than what we know right now," Astor said.

READ MORE >>

— Joel Rubin and Joseph Serna

For Nat Berhe, a fifth-round draft pick for the Giants in 2014, Wednesday's mass shooting at first seemed like a narrow miss for his family.

Berhe, who was born in Fontana and graduated from Colton High School, tweeted an image hours after the attack showing how close his parents' office was to the scene of the shooting.

Then today he got terrible news.

— Chuck Schilken

California Department of Motor Vehicles officials have released a driver's license photo of Syed Rizwan Farook. Farook's current license was issued in 2013, according to DMV officials. Officials did not say if the image was taken then or was reused from an earlier license.

Such photos become a public record after someone's death and can be released by the state following confirmation of the death by a local coroner.

— Megan Garvey

A police chaplain and three women, including a victim's fiancee, took bouquets of flowers to the area near the Inland Regional Center on Thursday.

Tears streamed from beneath one woman's sunglasses.

"It was her fiance. He is one of the victims," said Steve Ballinger, chaplain with the Billy Graham rapid response team who works with Riverside police.

The woman didn't want to talk and began to sob as she walked away.

— Richard Winton

In an email sent to employees, Juan C. Perez, director of the Riverside County Transportation & Land Management Agency, called Damian Meins a "bright light" that had been "extinguished from our world in a most tragic way."

Perez said Meins had spent 28 years working for Riverside County and had recently returned to a position with the Environmental Health Department after retiring in 2010. Meins, he said, also worked as a physical education teacher at St. Catherine's School in Riverside, where he played Santa for the children.

"I will always remember Damian as a caring, jovial man with a warm smile and a hearty laugh," Perez wrote.

— Megan Garvey

As they arrived at school Thursday morning, teachers in San Bernardino received an email from district headquarters -- a tip sheet to guide the conversations that they’d surely have with their students the day after 14 people died and 21 were injured in a mass shooting in their city.

The guidelines encouraged teachers to stick to the facts and to reassure students that they were safe at school and that the school district and school police were committed to keeping them safe. The email also included advice from the National Assn. of School Psychologists on talking to children about violence.

The district has a crisis team to support students and staff in some schools and at the district headquarters, said Laura Strachan, director of alternative programs for the San Bernardino City Unified School District.

The crisis team is trained to deal with situations like this one, and accompanies and observes school police during live-shooter trainings.

“We have had other events where there’d be, say, a student’s family involved in a shooting where we would deploy [the crisis team],” Strachan said. “But nothing of this scope.”

— Sonali Kohli

When Mahmoud Tarifi learned the name of a suspect in Wednesday’s San Bernardino shooting, his heart sank. He said he knew the man may have been Muslim.

After officials announced that Syed Farook was a suspect, members of the faith’s community shared their sense of grief and concern.

Tarifi, a leader at the Islamic Center of Claremont, said American Muslims are accustomed to being targeted and scapegoated whenever violent Islamic extremists commit attacks.

“Every Muslim worries about being victimized,” he said. “It&rsdquo;s how we felt after 9/11 and after the Paris attacks.“

— Sarah Parvini, Kate Linthicum and Taylor Goldenstein

The Times' Dexter Thomas writes that the next time he tells someone where he's from, they won't say: "Where is that?" They might say: "I'm sorry."

Fourteen people shot dead and 21 wounded in a mass shooting in an already struggling town will do that.

Read more: Please do politicize my hometown's tragedy

The shootings in San Bernardino lit up social media in the Arab world, where some denounced the shooters and others jumped to the conclusion that Islamic State played some role, although no group has claimed responsibility and the motive was not immediately clear.

"Apparently ISIS is behind the attack,” @Tammam1975 tweeted in Arabic.

@A_Al3azmi was among a number of people who saw a conspiracy, in his case related to the religious background of the suspects. “Of course the suspect always has to be Muslim, so they can say that it is a terrorist act,” he tweeted.

Many people expressed fear of a Western backlash against Muslims as a result of the attack. “If the attacker was Christian, would they still accuse all Christians of being terrorists and shut down their churches like what happens with Muslims?” asked Twitter user @Y_Salem.

And Egyptian Nobel laureate Mohamed ElBaradei warned of the consequences of any such backlash. “Should 1.5 bn Muslims be blamed or targeted for terror, we will have disastrous schism. Insulate extremists but don't throw baby w/bathwater.

—Amro Hassan for The Times

Ryan Reyes, 32, received a text message Wednesday from his sister: "Hey Ry does Daniel work at the Regional Center in Sb? Check the news."

Reyes repeatedly called Daniel Kaufman, his boyfriend of three years who ran a coffee shop at the Inland Regional Center, but kept getting sent to voicemail.

"Call me ASAP!" he texted. There was no reply.

The next 22 hours were a slow torture, as Reyes and his family received conflicting reports about Kaufman's fate. In the end, they learned that Kaufman was among the 14 killed.

READ MORE >>

— Alan Zarembo

Times staff writer Dexter Thomas attended dawn prayers at the Riverside mosque where shooting suspect Syed Rizwan Farook was once a regular worshiper.

Federal investigators are attempting to interview three men who "were in phone contact" with suspects Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik in the days leading up to the shooting rampage, a government official said.

"They were associates and in contact with the shooters,” said the official, who requested anonymity because of the delicacy of the matter.

It was not clear if the three men were involved in the shooting in any way.

— Richard Serrano and James Queally

Wetzel, a father of six, attended the Church of the Woods in Lake Arrowhead, and was killed in the shooting according to a post on the church's website. A photo shared there showed Wetzel standing with his wife and children, who range in age from mid-teens to an infant in his wife's arms. Wetzel's age was not immediately available.

"Please pray. My husband was in a meeting and a shooter came in. There are multiple people dead/shot. I can't get a hold of him," Wetzel's wife was quoted as writing to friends shortly after the shooting, according to a fundraising page for the family.

Wetzel was a supervising environmental health specialist with San Bernardino County.

Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) took to the Senate floor Thursday morning to tell colleagues her heart is broken over the shooting in San Bernardino.

“When I woke up this morning, I’d hoped that yesterday's tragedy in San Bernardino was just an unimaginable nightmare,” she said.

Congress needs to act to create a national policy that limits who can have military-style weapons and that keeps people on the no-fly list from purchasing weapons, she said.

“Once you know something is happening and you can do something about it and you don't do something about it, you're liable. Maybe not in a legal sense. In the moral sense,” she said.

— Sarah D. Wire

Police said that they believe Syed Farook and Tashfeen Malik were the only people directly involved in the shooting, but said the investigation is continuing.

On Thursday morning, FBI agents and S.W.A.T. officers raided a condominium in Corona, where they led away one man in handcuffs, neighbors said.

“FBI agents with bullhorns showed up at 5 a.m.,” said Lorraine Otto, who lives next door to the home on Forum Way. “They kept saying, ‘This is the FBI. Open the door. If you don’t open the door, we’ll break it open.'”

— James Queally