By MEGHAN KENEALLY
At least 14 people were dead and another 14 injured in a shooting Wednesday in San Bernardino, California, when multiple gunmen who were heavily armed and "on a mission" opened fire during a function at a center for people with developmental disabilities, police said.
Up to three shooters opened fire around 11 a.m. at the Inland Regional Center, armed with long guns and "came prepared to do what they did as if they were on a mission," San Bernardino Police Chief Jarrod Bruguan said.
The shooting lasted for just "a few minutes" before the suspects, who remained on the loose, may have fled the scene in what Burguan described as a "dark color SUV." Police have no identification information about the suspects and have not identified a motive.
In the wake of the shooting, local city and county buildings in the area were locked down. Authorities were checking unidentifiable items in the center, but no explosives were immediately found. It was not clear if the gunmen brought them.
San Bernardino police spokeswoman Sgt. Vicki Cervantes said earlier that the suspects were possibly wearing body armor.
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The majority of the casualties took place in one area of the "massive" facility that employs several hundred people, Burguan said. A lunch meeting was going on involving state and county employees as well as a number of organizations, he added.
"They had some type of function here today, an event, and during that event is when multiple shooters came in and just started shooting," Cervantes said earlier.
Four people have been taken to the nearby Loma Linda University Medical Center, three of whom are being treated in operating rooms and the fourth is receiving a CT scan. Three more patients were expected, according to a hospital spokesman. Six other people are being treated at Arrowhead Regional Medical Center, though their conditions are unknown.
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Federal agents from the FBI, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, the U.S. Immigration and CUstoms Enforcement Homeland Security Investigations team and the U.S. Marshals are all on scene providing support to San Bernardino County Sheriff’s office, which is the lead agency in this active shooter response.
President Obama was notified of the shooting while in Paris for the global climate summit.
"The one thing we do know is that we have a pattern now of mass shootings in this country that has no parallel anywhere else in world,"he told CBS.
A man whose wife works at the Inland Regional Center said that his wife saw a man she believed to be a shooter.
"The guy came in next to her office and I guess started shooting," said the man, who identified himself to KABC as Marc.
He said that his wife told him she locked herself in her office with others. When she and the others left the building, "they saw bodies on the floor," Marc said his wife told him.
This is a developing story. Please check back in for updates
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