On December 2, 2015, Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik, a married couple, shot and killed 14 people and injured 21 others at the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino, California, United States. They targeted a San Bernardino County Department of Public Health training event and holiday party with about 80 employees in attendance at the rented auditorium. Before the shooting, Syed Farook had attended the event as an employee. After the shooting, the couple fled in an SUV.
About four hours later, the two suspects were pursued in their vehicle by police and killed during an exchange of gunfire. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) began a counter-terrorism investigation because of the type of equipment used, the couples' recent travel to the Middle East, and the discovery of a Facebook post attributed to Malik in which she pledged allegiance (Bay'ah) to the leader of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), close to the time of the shooting. FBI Director James Comey said that there was no indication the couple were part of a cell or network, or that they were directed by any group.
The attack was the second-deadliest mass shooting in California, after the 1984 San Ysidro McDonald's massacre, and the deadliest in the U.S. since the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. The New York Times described it as the deadliest ISIL-inspired attack on American soil.