14 killed at California social services building in latest US shooting

Police were last night searching for up to three suspects after at least 14 people were killed and 14 injured in a shooting at a social services agency for the developmentally disabled in the Southern California city of San Bernardino.

Police said up to three people entered the building and began shooting at 11am local time.

Hundreds of people were safely evacuated from the building at the time, as police said they did not know if this was a “terrorist incident”.

“We don’t know what the motive is at this point,” said San Bernardino police chief Jarrod Burguan.

“They were dressed in a way that indicated they were prepared.”

He said police “do not have any identification of who these suspects were” but added that, “at minimum we have a domestic terrorist type situation that occurred”.

San Bernardino is some 100km east of Los Angeles.

A police spokeswoman told the Los Angeles Times that the suspects were heavily armed and possibly wearing body armour, and CBS reported that a bomb squad was on the scene, trying to defuse what was believed to be an explosive device.

President Barack Obama yesterday called for a bipartisan effort “at every level of government” to address mass shootings.

“We don’t yet know what the motives of the shooters are, but what we do know is there are steps we can take to make Americans safer and that we should come together in a bipartisan basis at every level of government to make these rare as opposed to normal,” he told CBS News.

“We should never think that this is something that just happens in the ordinary course of events, because it doesn’t happen with the same frequency in other countries,” he said.

Agents for the FBI and the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives were dispatched to the scene to assist local law enforcement in the probe.

The shooting took place at the Inland Regional Centre, one of 21 facilities set up by the state and run under contract by non-profit organisations to serve people with developmental disabilities, said Nancy Lungren, spokeswoman for the California Department of Developmental Services.

Lavina Johnson, executive director of the facility, told CNN that one to three suspects opened fire inside a conference centre where a holiday party was being held for county health department personnel.

CNN images showed people being evacuated from the building, their arms raised, as triage stations were set up outside. Police and SWAT teams were seen surrounding the building.

Loma Linda University Medical Centre said it had received four adult patients and was expecting more.

The regional centres like the one attacked in San Bernardino administer, authorise, and pay for assistance to people with disabilities such as autism and mental retardation.

In an average day, doctors at the regional centres would be evaluating toddlers whose parents have concerns and case workers would be meeting with developmentally disabled adults.

Lungren said the San Bernardino facility is one of the state’s largest and busiest.

The shooting in California comes less than a week after a gunman killed three people and wounded nine in a rampage at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs.