The San Bernardino Attack

The autopsy reports of the victims of the December 2, 2015 attack at the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino, California — fourteen people killed and twenty-two injured.

Background

On the morning of December 2, 2015, employees of the San Bernardino County Department of Public Health gathered at the Inland Regional Center — a nonprofit facility serving people with developmental disabilities — for the department's annual holiday luncheon and staff training session. Among those in attendance was Syed Rizwan Farook, 28, a county environmental health inspector who worked with many of the people in the room.

Farook left the gathering during the event. A short time later he returned with his wife, Tashfeen Malik, 27, and what followed would become one of the deadliest terrorist attacks on American soil since September 11, 2001.

The Attack

Just before 11:00 a.m., Farook and Malik entered the conference room where the holiday party was underway, wearing tactical-style clothing and carrying assault-style rifles and handguns, and opened fire on the crowd. Within minutes, fourteen people were killed and twenty-two others were wounded before the two fled the scene in a black SUV.

The fourteen people killed were Robert Adams, Isaac Amanios, Bennetta Betbadal, Harry Bowman, Sierra Clayborn, Juan Espinoza, Aurora Godoy, Shannon Johnson, Larry Kaufman, Damian Meins, Tin Nguyen, Nicholas Thalasinos, Yvette Velasco, and Michael Wetzel — county employees and colleagues, many of them longtime friends, gathered for a routine department celebration.

About four hours later, police located the suspects' SUV in a residential neighborhood of San Bernardino. A pursuit ended in a shootout with law enforcement, during which both Farook and Malik were killed. Investigators recovered a large cache of weapons, ammunition, and pipe bombs — including an explosive device left behind at the Inland Regional Center that failed to detonate.

Aftermath

The FBI announced it was investigating the shooting as an act of terrorism. Investigators reported that Malik had posted a pledge of allegiance to the leader of the Islamic State on Facebook during the attack, and that the couple had become self-radicalized over time — though officials found no evidence that the attack had been directed by a foreign terrorist organization. The FBI director later described the pair as “homegrown violent extremists.”

The attack intensified the national debate over gun control, workplace violence, and domestic terrorism. It also touched off a landmark legal battle over digital privacy when the FBI sought to compel Apple to help unlock Farook's iPhone; the case was dropped after investigators gained access to the phone through other means.

In 2017, Enrique Marquez Jr. — a former neighbor who had purchased the rifles used in the attack — pleaded guilty to federal conspiracy and firearms charges, and in 2020 he was sentenced to 20 years in prison.

The community of San Bernardino mourned the dead at vigils and memorial services, and the Inland Regional Center's surviving clients and staff were relocated in the months that followed. A permanent memorial honors the fourteen victims of December 2, 2015.

The Report

The San Bernardino County Coroner conducted postmortem examinations of the fourteen people killed in the attack. Their reports are provided below.

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