SAN BERNARDINO, Calif. (AP) — The FBI says it is investigating the deadly mass shooting in California as an “act of terrorism.”
David Bowdich, assistant director of the FBI’s Los Angeles office, made the declaration at a news conference Friday in California.
He also said the shooters attempted to destroy evidence, including crushing two cell phones and discarding them in a trash can. He said authorities continue to investigate the case to understand the motivations of the shooters and whether they were planning more attacks.
The woman who helped her husband kill 14 people at holiday party in California praised the leader of the Islamic State group in a Facebook post just minutes into the attack.
A Facebook executive told The Associated Press that Tashfeen Malik posted the material under an alias account at 11 a.m. Wednesday. That was about the time the first 911 calls came in and when the couple were believed to have stormed into the San Bernardino social service center and opened fire.
The executive spoke on condition of anonymity because this person was not allowed under corporate policy to be quoted by name.
The company discovered the Facebook account Thursday. It removed the profile from public view and reported its contents to law enforcement.
An expert says the revelation that one of the California attackers pledging allegiance to the Islamic State group on Facebook suggests the woman was inspired by IS ideology but wasn’t necessarily in direct touch with the group.
John Cohen, a former counterterrorism coordinator for the Homeland Security Department and a Rutgers University professor, said those people are harder to detect.
He says the counterterrorism infrastructure is built on preventing tightly organized attacks directed by a specific group, not detecting people inspired by IS but operating independently. He says that means different tools are needed to prevent those types of attacks.
Cohen says IS has aggressively used social media and have “successfully inspired thousands of people.”
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