Enrique Marquez Jr., collaborator with Islamic terrorists Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik in the December 2, 2015 murder of 14 innocents in San Bernardino, California, has pleaded guilty to federal terrorism charges.
“This defendant collaborated with and purchased weapons for a man who carried out the devastating Dec. 2, 2015, terrorist attack that took the lives of 14 innocent people, wounded nearly two dozen, and impacted our entire nation,” said a statement by U.S. Attorney Eileen M. Decker.
As the Los Angeles Times reported, Marquez attended a mosque with Syed Farook and the pair were “secretly amassing weapons, discussing radical Islam and plotting attacks.”
The pair selected Riverside Community College because they both had been enrolled there and were familiar with the campus. The pair “drew up plans to hurl pipe bombs onto a cafeteria from the floor above and identified the escape route they would use to carry out more attacks elsewhere on the school grounds.”
Marquez and Farook did not pull off that attack, and another on freeway motorists, but Marquez purchased the rifles Farook and Malik used in the attack at the Inland Regional Center. There Farook and Tashfeeen Malik shot dead 14 victims, wounding many others, in the worst terrorist attack on U.S. soil since 9⁄11, until Omar Mateen killed 49 in Orlando, Florida in June of 2016.
In the San Bernardino attack, which a Police Foundation report called “the worst thing imaginable,” Farook and Malik began firing outside, claiming two victims. Then they headed inside, to a room decorated for a holiday party.
“Suddenly, a door swung open and a person clad in all black, with a mask shielding his or her face, stepped inside, wielding what appeared to be an automatic rifle. Without saying a word, the person, now believed to be Rizwan Farook (the male assailant), opened fire.” Then Tashfeen Malik followed. “She also wore all black and entered the room shooting. Together, the shooters fired more than 100 rounds.” The shooters then “hastily departed, heading out to a black SUV they had parked just outside, leaving behind a chaotic scene of noise, fear, and pain.”
In the ensuing chase, Farook fired from the front of the black SUV with Malik, firing from the back seat “out of a hole in the rear hatch of the vehicle.” All told they fired at least 81 rounds at the police, wounding one officer, who stayed in the fight as another officer dressed his wounds.
Police shooters hit Syed Farook 25 times, including one shot in the chin. The 13 shots that took down Tashfeen Malik included two to her head. Inside the SUV the police found “an additional 1,879 rounds of .223 ammunition and another 484 rounds of 9-mm ammunition.” Police also found a “trigger apparatus to detonate the secondary devices” at the Regional Center, a reference to bombs intended to increase the death toll among the first responders, an Islamic terrorist calling card.
At the time the Washington establishment denied or downplayed Islam as a motive, and even hesitated to invoke terrorism. When that could not be denied, the alibi armory broke out its Islamophobia incantation. Syeda Jafri, spokewoman for Rialto Unified School District, near San Bernardino, told the reporters, “It’s a tragedy that the distortion of Islam is being so boldly manipulated by a few,” adding, “We will overcome this hysteria and Islamophobia through education.”
According to Tina Aoun, director of the Middle Eastern Student Center at UC Riverside, “Many of my Muslim friends, among others, have doubts about the FBI’s narrative of what happened. That’s because the story has so many holes in it. It doesn’t make any sense. Why did the FBI and police release the crime scene in the house in Redlands only one day after the shooting? Why would terrorists have a baby? Why would they target a facility for children with disabilities?”
In early January California governor Jerry Brown attended a private memorial service for the victims of the San Bernardino terrorist attack. Neither Brown nor state Attorney General Xavier Becerra issued a statement following the Marquez plea deal.
News reports portrayed the collaborator as something of a loser with mental problems, in the style of Californian Nicholas Teausant. The National Guard reject was competent enough to attempt a trip to Syria to join ISIS, and he spoke about blowing up a “Zionist” daycare center.
Teausant has been sentenced to twelve years in prison. Enrique Marquez could get the maximum 25 years to life in federal prison, plus a $500,000 fine.
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