Syed Rizwan Farook (June 14, 1987 - 2 December 2015) was an American employee at the Department of Public Health in San Bernardino County, California, who was a suspected radical Islamist and the perpetrator of the 2015 San Bernardino attack with his wife Tashfeen Malik.
Biography[]
Syed Rizwan Farook was born in 1987 in Chicago, Illinois to a family of Sunni Muslim Pakistani descent. He attended La Sierra High School and graduated a year early in 2004. In 2009 he graduated from California State University in San Bernardino with a degree in environmental health, and he worked as a food inspector at the Department of Public Health in San Bernardino County, California, where he was described as quiet and polite. Farook married Tashfeen Malik after meeting her on the internet and seeing her in Saudi Arabia during the hajj in 2013, and he showed no signs of being radicalized until he grew a beard in November 2015. He also wore long robes to Friday prayers, attending the Islamic Center of Riverside twice a day, and he was known as a devout Muslim. Farook and Malik planned out an attack against his place of work, with his wife having pledged allegiance to the Islamic State, and on 2 December 2015 the two of them fired on people gathering at the Department of Public Health office for a Christmas party after practicing at a firing range a few days prior. The two of them, armed with AR-15 rifles, killed 14 people before they drove off in a black Ford Expedition SUV, which was chased down by police. They threw pipe bombs, but they were both killed by bullets as they drove. Their SUV was located on a street and surrounded by SWAT troops and armored cars, and they were verified to be dead, with no third attacker taking part in the attack as reports suggested.