2 Southern California shooting suspects dead, explosive found

Los Angeles, Dec 3: Two suspects, a male and a female, were dead and one possible suspect was in custody after the deadly shooting that killed at least 14 people and injured 17 others in San Bernardino City of Southern California on Wednesday.

San Bernardino Police Chief Jarrod Burguan told a press conference that police found a suspected explosive device in the Inland Regional Center building where the shooting happened at around 11:00 a.m. local time (1900 GMT), Xinhua reported.

The two killed suspects were a male and a female. Both of them had rifles and handguns. Their dark SUV, which they drove to flee, was found several hours later in the afternoon by police and after a while of chasing they stopped and exchanged gunfire with police at a residential area several miles away from the shooting scene. Both were killed during the gunfire.

The Loma Linda Medical Center, which received five adult injured victims of the shooting for treatment, got a bomb threat in the afternoon, police said.

Briana Pastino, Public Information Officer of the hospital, said all of the five victims are remaining in the hospital. Two of them are in critical but stable condition, two others in fair condition and one is still being accessed.

Assistant director of FBI David Boudich said that he is still not sure whether the shooting is a terrorist attack or not. He said that more evidence needs to be put together.

One police officer suffered light injury during the action.

Police said the shooters were well prepared with long guns and wearing ski masks and possibly body armour. They burst into a conference room, which was rented by the San Bernardino Health Department for a banquet for its employees, and started shooting.

There were several hundred people inside the building when the shooting happened. Most of them walked out unhurt.

The identity and motivation of the shooter or shooters are still under investigation.

US President Barack Obama was briefed about the shooting.

"We should never think that this is something that just happens in the ordinary course of events, because it does not happen with the same frequency in other countries," said Obama, who called for tighter gun control after a shooting in Colorado last Friday killed three people.

IANS