A manhunt was under way for up to three suspects who shot as many as 20 people, some of them fatally, at a holiday party at a social services agency in the Southern California city of San Bernardino, authorities said.
San Bernardino Police Lieutenant Richard Lawhead told a local NBC television network affiliate there were multiple fatalities, and a reporter for that channel said he saw the bodies of three victims following the shooting rampage.
MSNBC also reported that law enforcement authorities had confirmed the three deaths.
The San Bernardino Fire Department said in a Twitter post that it was responding to reports of 20 victims. San Bernardino is some 60 miles (100 km) east of Los Angeles.
A police spokeswoman told the Los Angeles Times that the suspects were heavily armed and possibly wearing body armor, 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 was briefed on the attack and reiterated calls for stronger gun laws. “…We should come together in a bipartisan basis at every level of government to make these (shootings) rare as opposed to normal.”
Agents for the FBI and the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives were dispatched to the scene to assist local law enforcement in the investigation, representatives for the two agencies said.
The shooting took place at the Inland Regional Center, one of 21 facilities set up by the state and run under contract by non-profit organizations 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 center where a holiday party was being held for county health department personnel.
The conference building sits adjacent to the two larger three-story buildings that house most of the agency's offices, Johnson said. Asked whether that meant that the Inland Regional Center staff and clients were safe, she said she understood they were being evacuated.
Television images on CNN 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.
HOSPITAL READIES FOR PATIENTS
Loma Linda University Medical Center, on a recorded hotline, said it had received four adult patients and was expecting three more.
The regional centers like the one attacked in San Bernardino administer, authorize and pay for assistance to people with disabilities such as autism and mental retardation.
On an average day, doctors at the regional centers would be evaluating toddlers whose parents have concerns and case workers would be meeting with developmentally disabled adults. Lungren said that 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 shooting rampage at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs. In October, a gunman killed nine people at a college in Oregon and in June a white gunman killed nine black churchgoers in South Carolina.
The Inland Regional Center has been the focus of recent complaints that its clients were not receiving all services requested or that some services were cut back without proper notice, said attorney Terri Keville of the law firm Davis Wright Tremaine, LLP.
In a settlement last year, the agency agreed to implement new procedures to make sure clients were properly informed of their rights and received the services to which they were entitled.
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