How The Times covered the San Bernardino terrorist attack

L.A. Now’s breaking news team quickly confirmed reports of the shooting first shared by fire officials on social media.

News is tweeted on the main @latimes account with 1.75 million followers. Shortly afterward, an email was sent to The Times breaking news subscribers.

To augment the main news story, The Times launches a live blog that runs for eight days and includes hundreds of updates.

The Times explains that the fatal mass shooting in San Bernardino took place at a facility dedicated to helping people with disabilities. At the time it was unclear if the attack was connected to the facility.

At first, Dorothy Vong assumed it was a drill – just like all the others at her work. At the Inland Regional Center, where she’s a nurse, the staff works with clients and parents of clients who are sometimes angry. They have active-shooter drills every month or so.

“Drill started,” she texted her husband, Mark, around 11 a.m. She walked to a window nearby and filmed a video as law enforcement sprinted toward the building.

“Oh, that is scary,” a voice says calmly in the background.

The San Bernardino Fire Department, which was first to tweet news about a mass shooting, points followers to latimes.com for live updates.

As night falls, neighbors recount terror as scores of rounds of bullets passed nearby.

Tashfeen Malik, 27, is identified by police as the second shooter. Authorities at the time said she and Syed Farook were a couple.

By late evening, The Times comprehensive main bar had been updated more than 20 times, giving readers the big picture on the day’s events.

Coworkers tell The Times that Syed Farook recently traveled to Saudi Arabia and returned with a new wife he had met online. The report is the first to disclose details that later emerge as significant.

The Times in-depth report summarizes the chaotic day of events, including a comprehensive timeline of the shooting and aftermath.

A Times database tells the stories of the 14 people killed, as well as some of the wounded. Among the dead: A father of six. A free-spirit who befriended strangers in the grocery store checkout line. A mother of three who fled religious persecution in Iran. A woman who was 8 when she and her mother left Vietnam for a better life. The youngest was 26. The oldest was 60.

Ryan Reyes dropped off his boyfriend, Daniel Kaufman, at work Wednesday at 7 a.m. and traded texts and photos with him throughout the morning.

“He was his usual cheerful, chattering self,” Reyes said.

Kaufman, 42, ran the coffee shop in building 3 at the Inland Regional Center, training the developmentally disabled clients who worked there.

The last message from Kaufman arrived at 10:37 a.m. — a picture of a friend he had met at a comic book conference.

This in-depth analysis three days after the slaughter explains how the San Bernardino shooting fits a pattern of recent terrorist attacks in the U.S.: each was inspired by foreign terrorist groups but not directed by them. The story reveals a critical theory of the case – that no evidence has emerged to link Farook and Malik to a larger conspiracy organized by Islamic State or other extremist group.

We reveal that Farook and Malik had been long radicalized and had practiced target shooting at a local gun range. The story also discloses that the two semi-automatic assault rifles used in the rampage were purchased by a neighbor and friend who shared Farook’s radical beliefs.

We report that the Farook-Malik couple secured a $28,500 loan in advance of the shootings, and authorities believe it helped them buy guns, ammo and explosives. We disclose that Farook left a bag of pipe bombs inside the building, apparently to target first-responders, and that the couple had studied “Inspire” magazine, the Al Qaeda handbook for building homemade bombs.

We were first to report that Farook and Malik had radicalized online for years before they met. We also reported that Farook had planned terrorist acts in 2011 and 2012, years before he met Malik online, and that Enrique Marquez, Farook’s former friend and neighbor, had purchased two rifles used in the San Bernardino rampage. Marquez would later be charged with multiple felonies.

We report exclusively that Malik sent at least two private messages on Facebook in 2012 and 2014 to friends in Pakistan, embracing jihad long before she and her husband carried out the San Bernardino attack. The FBI later confirmed the story, while knocking back a New York Times story that said she had publicly posted here support on social media.

We break news of Enrique Marquez Jr.’s arrest two minutes after he is formally charged, beating all other news organizations. The story shows how Marquez and Farook considered other deadly terrorist plots long before Farook and his wife used Marquez’ guns to carry out the San Bernardino attack.

We were the first to report that the White House wanted options for stepping up cyber attacks against Islamic State after investigators discovered that Farook and Malik had pledged allegiance to the group’s leader the day of the San Bernardino massacre.

We were the first to get Malik’s K-1 visa application and produce a comprehensive story that shed light on the couple’s first meeting in Mecca and decision to marry.