|
| Members of the media crowd into the apartment bedroom of San Bernardino shooting suspects Syed Farook and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, in Redlands, Calif., Friday, Dec. 4, 2015, after the building landlord invited journalists into the townhouse. A book containing passages from the Quran is seen at right. |
REDLANDS,
Calif. (AP) -- The kitchen had pots on the stove, dirty dishes in
the sink and a half-eaten pita sandwich. In a bedroom, there were boxes
of diapers next to a crib with mussed sheets and a desk with photo
identification of Syed Farook.
Viewers around
the world got an intimate look Friday at the home of Farook and Tashfeen
Malik, two days after their modest Redlands apartment became an active
crime scene and where authorities said the couple stored pipe bombs,
tools and large caches of ammunition.
Camera
crews were elbow-to-elbow as they broadcast live inside the home in a
chaotic scramble, while about 100 journalists lodged on the front lawn.
Television crews moved documents to position for their shots. Some
picked through documents and photos and rummaged through bedrooms.
The
images showed mundane details of everyday life. A mattress lay on a
bedroom floor, covered with documents and Arabic books. The closet had
clothes hanging and family photos on the top shelf, with a hole in the
ceiling.
The living room table had several
documents, including one that authorities left behind listing what they
had seized. Walls were covered with decorative rugs with Arabic script.
David
Bowdich, the FBI's assistant special agent in charge in Los Angeles,
said authorities returned the home to the owner Thursday night after
executing a search warrant.
"Once the residents have the apartment and we're not involved any more, we don't control it," he said.
FBI Director James Comey said he was "neither happy nor unhappy" with the video footage shown.
"When
we're done with a location, we return it to the rightful owners and we
have to leave an inventory under the law of what was taken," he said.
"People got to see our great criminal justice system in action."
Ellen
Glasser, a former FBI agent who coordinated a counterterrorism task
force in Jacksonville, Florida, said anything left behind would be
compromised but authorities may have gotten everything they needed. She
found the spectacle unsettling.
"I thought it
was bizarre," said Glasser, a professor of criminology at University of
North Florida. "I've never seen that kind of thing happen before, but
this is a frenzy for information."
As
journalists sifted through the family's personal belongings live on air,
social media responded with a barrage of angry tweets. MSNBC was
trending within the hour, with more than 42,000 tweets sent out about
the network that had aired family photos, a driver's license and a
social security CAPS card.
MSNBC said that while it was not the first crew to enter the home, it was the first to air live shots from inside.
"We
regret that we briefly showed images of photographs and identification
cards that should not have been aired without review," said Diana Rocco,
MSNBC spokeswoman.
CNN said that it made an
editorial decision not to air close-up photos of material that could be
sensitive or identifiable, such as photos or ID cards. Fox said it
exercised "cautious editorial judgment and refrained from showing
close-ups of sensitive information."
The Associated Press was among the news organizations that visited the home, but did not touch anything.
Landlord
Doyle Miller opened the home after the FBI was finished with its
investigation and that journalists quickly took over the home, where the
couple had lived since May.
"I opened up the door, I looked in, and all of a sudden rush, whoosh," said Miller.
