UPDATED: Dec. 2, 2015, 8:25 PM ET
At least 14 are dead and 17 wounded after as many as three gunman opened fire Wednesday in the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino, California, police said.
Law enforcement were involved in a shootout with a black SUV late Wednesday and “some suspects or a suspect” was hit, a San Bernardino police spokeswoman said Wednesday evening. She said another suspect might still be at large. A police officer sustained non, life-threatening injuries in the shootout and was transported to a hospital, the spokeswoman said.
Officers located what they believed was the suspect’s vehicle while they were conducting “follow-up work,” according to the spokeswoman.
The New York Times reported that one suspect was killed in the shootout, another suspect whose condition was unknown remained in the vehicle, and a third suspect was still at large.
ATF agents found what was believed to be a pipe bomb on one of the suspects, a local law enforcement official told The Washington Post.
Police chief Jarrod Burguan earlier said the suspects, who may have fled the scene in a dark colored SUV, had not yet been identified.
Asked if the attack was targeted, Burguan said “these are people that came prepared” with long guns.
“They came in with a purpose,” he said in a press conference, and attacked “as if they were on a mission.” He did not offer a possible motive for the massacre.
A federal law enforcement official told the LA Times that it was believed a man “angrily left” the event at the Inland Regional Center and returned with “one or two” other people and began shooting.
Between 100 and 200 people were in the room where the shooting occurred for a San Bernardino Public Health Department staff Christmas party, county employees told SFGate.
Law enforcement told The New York Times that one gunman was believed to have worked at the facility and had a recent dispute with colleagues.
Burguan said after police received a call reporting the shooting at 11 a.m. local time, it was “quickly apparent” it was an active shooting situation.
The scene remained active Wednesday afternoon, and Burguan said there were “several hundred” people in the building during the attack that were unharmed.
Burguan said “at a minimum, we have a domestic-type terrorist situation that occurred here.” But minutes earlier in the same press conference, David Bowdich, FBI Los Angeles assistant director in charge, was reluctant to label the shooting as an act of terrorism.
A spokeswoman for Loma Linda University Medical Center, a nearby trauma center, said in a press conference the hospital had received four adult victims from the shooting and at least three more were expected. NBC reported that Arrowhead Regional Medical Center, another local hospital, was treating six patients.
The Los Angeles Times reported police used a robot to detonate a suspicious device left after the suspects fled the scene.
The shooting occurred at a holiday party for county employees, Reuters reported. Marybeth Feild, an Inland Center employee, told the Associated Press “the incident is in the conference area,” which had been rented for use by an outside group Wednesday.
MSNBC was broadcasting live affiliate footage of victims receiving medical attention while lying on the ground and hunched over cars. Federal agents from the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives were also at the scene.
A first responder attends to a person outside a Southern California social services center in San Bernardino. (KNBC via AP)
President Obama was briefed on the shooting. He later said there is a “pattern” of mass shootings in the country “that has no parallel anywhere else in the world.”
Inland Regional Center, located at 1365 S. Waterman Ave., serves individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities in Riverside and San Bernardino counties. The center has have nearly 670 staffers to provide services for more than 30,200 people with developmental disabilities and their families, according to the center’s Facebook page.
The ICF Holiday Party is in full swing! ☃ pic.twitter.com/AzOCbliVmb
— Inland RC (@InlandRegional) December 1, 2015
Witnesses near the scene tweeted about a police SWAT team responding to evacuate people.
.@SanBernardinoPD SWAT on scene pic.twitter.com/uFTfdBROOp
— Doug Saunders (@crimeshutterbug) December 2, 2015
.@SanBernardinoPD and other Law Enforcement agencies are evacuating people from the Inland Regional Center pic.twitter.com/kPU2dbWqV3
— Doug Saunders (@crimeshutterbug) December 2, 2015
Watch live coverage from local news station KTLA:
TPM’s Caitlin Cruz contributed reporting to this story. This post has been updated.
