NEW YORK—As a prominent member of the House Homeland Security Committee said “we have to stop political correctness” and do more surveillance in mosques and cafes—the FBI in Los Angeles announced jihad couple, Syed Farook and Tashfeen Malik, were both radicalized and had been “for some time.” They also apparently had been doing target practice in the Los Angeles area, shortly before the mass shootings.
The FBI held a Monday afternoon press conference, hours after thousands of county workers in San Bernardino, California returned to their jobs, five days after restaurant inspector Farook and his militant wife opened fire on Farook’s colleagues, during a Christmas party at the Inland Regional Center.
David Bowdich, assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles office, told reporters three of the guns recovered from the couple’s shootout vehicle and from their home were bought by Farook between 2007 and 2012. Their former next-door neighbor, Enrique Marquez, had bought the two assault rifles used in the attacks. Marquez checked himself into a mental hospital not long after the mass shootings.
Bowdich also revealed 19 pipes were discovered in the couple’s home in Redlands, California. They could easily have been turned into explosives, if built with the right components.
The FBI made its new revelations, as reaction to President Obama’s Oval Office speech Sunday night continued into Monday.
Even though the President called on Muslims to root out extremist ideology in their community, acknowledging “It’s a real problem that Muslims must confront without excuse,” Republicans—in particular—faulted the speech for offering no, new initiatives.
“Very simply, we have to stop political correctness,” said Long Island Rep. Peter King, a Republican who’s a long-time member of the House Homeland Security Committee—and the committee’s former chairman.
“These new type of attacks, coming from within the Muslim community, are very difficult to stop in advance, unless we have intelligence on the ground on who’s being radicalized.”
“Go into mosques, go into coffee shops,” King added.
When PIX 11 reminded King that intelligence gathering like this garnered criticism for former NYPD Police Commissioner, Raymond Kelly, King responded, “Ray Kelly was 100 percent right!”
King said the NYPD was the leading, counter-terrorism force in the United States, post 9/11. Regarding the sensitivities over surveillance, King argued, “It’s the same thing that was going on for years in the Italian-American community, when police and the FBI were going after the Mafia….or going after Irish-Americans in the Westies’ gang.
There were some emotional moments this morning at a press conference in San Bernardino, as Trudy Raymundo—an administrator with the San Bernardino Department of Public Health, who survived the massacre at the Christmas party—appeared with other county officials. “I want you to every day be grateful for those of us that were spared and those that are still with us today.”
