LA Conference Sheds Light On San Bernardino Terrorist Attack
LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) — First responders and experts will offer insights into last year's terrorist attack in San Bernardino at a conference that begins Tuesday in Los Angeles.
The conference will feature discussions on how to better serve victims after a large-scale event like the Dec. 2, 2015, mass shooting carried out by a pair of home-grown terrorists at the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino. The shooting killed 14 people and wounded 22 others.
Experts are expected to provide an overview of the initial response to the San Bernardino rampage, lessons learned from the coordinated response by first responders, the variety of issues that the victims will face, the need for victim-support teams, and how victim-support teams can be most effective in their unique roles.
"While we hope to never again experience an event like the San Bernardino attack, there are important lessons we can learn and share about responding to such attacks," said Eileen M. Decker, the U.S. attorney in Los Angeles. "These lessons can be applied to a variety of incidents that we may face in this district and will help us be more prepared for large-scale events in the future."
Along with Decker, speakers at the event will include San Bernardino Assistant Chief of Police Eric McBride; Dr. Michael Neeki, chief of emergency services at Arrowhead Medical Center; and members of the FBI's Victim Services team who responded to the San Bernardino shootings.
Los Angeles city officials are also recruiting members of the public to join the Mayor's Crisis Response Team.
The attack was carried out by Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik, a married couple living in Redlands. Farook was an American-born U.S. citizen of Pakistani descent who worked for the county's health department. His wife, a new mother, was a native of Pakistan and permanent resident of the United States.
After the attack, the couple -- described by U.S. officials as self-radicalized -- fled in an SUV and were killed by police in a shootout a few hours later.
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