Suspect’s family lawyer pushes back on terror allegations, guns

Lawyers representing the family of the suspects in the mass shooting in San Bernardino, Calif., attempted to push back Friday on characterizations of the two suspects as being linked to terrorism. 

The attorneys said during a sprawling news conference aired on networks that the family of Syed Farook and his wife Tashfeen Malik had no idea the couple were aggressive or held extreme religious views.

{mosads}The news conference drifted toward guns, a major topic of debate after the suspects allegedly killed 14 people and 21 others with rifles Wednesday before dying in a shootout with police.  

“One of the main things I want to make sure happens is that not only is anyone [not] discriminated against as a result of this incident but that we continue to protect our freedom of religion and also our Second Amendment rights to bear arms,” Farook family attorney David Chesley told reporters. 

“We can’t have this announcement by the president every time there’s an incident like this that we need to ban all guns,” Chesley continued. “Those rights are important to us as Americans. We died for those rights and they shouldn’t be denied.”

President Obama reiterated a call for stricter limits on guns in the wake of the shooting earlier this week, as details were still coming together and before the FBI formally announced on Friday that it was investigating the shooting as an act of terrorism. Authorities have said all four recovered weapons had been purchased legally. 

Chesley indicated he was a gun-owner himself and encouraged those tracking the story to not read too much into the fact that investigators had recovered thousands of rounds of ammunition from the suspects’ home, noting owners may buy in bulk. (Investigators also recovered pipe-bomb-type devices and other bomb-making tools.) 

“I myself probably have 4,000 or 5,000 rounds of bullets that I keep at home. And the reason why you buy them in bulk is because they’re cheaper that way, and the government keeps on outlawing different types of bullets and different types of guns at different times, and then there will be shortages of bullets that will occur,” Chesley said. 

Elsewhere in the news conference, Chesley sought to push back on reports from earlier on Friday indicating that authorities had come across a Facebook post from Malik, the female suspect, declaring allegiance under an alias to the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), which the FBI acknowledged. 

“Any one of us may have looked at something on Facebook. It doesn’t mean that we believe in it. I’ve checked out a Britney Spears post, and I hate Britney Spears’ music,” Chesley told reporters. 

The FBI said that multiple pieces of evidence have pushed them to investigate the shooting as an act of terrorism.

Mohammad Abuershaid, another Farook family attorney, said the family was shocked by the mass shooting, saying, “They were very remorseful” and had undergone intense questioning by investigators.

He described Malik as quiet, saying she spoke Urdo and broken English, and that the family was very traditional, with women interacting among women during gatherings. Malik was also the mother of a 6-month-old child. 

“She was like a typical housewife,” Chesley said.