The FBI wants to know where the San Bernardino shooters were for 18 minutes after the massacre

The FBI seal.
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The FBI is asking for the public's help in piecing together where the shooters behind last month's massacre in San Bernardino were that day from 12:59 to 1:17 p.m.

Using surveillance and traffic cameras, authorities have been able to determine the whereabouts of Syed Farook and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, for most of Dec. 2, 2015. David Bowdich, assistant director in charge of the FBI's Los Angeles office, said Tuesday questions remain as to where they were for 18 minutes after the mass shooting at the Inland Regional Center, which killed 14 people. Bowdich said the FBI wants to know if they stopped at any businesses, contacted anyone, or dropped anything off during that time, the Los Angeles Times reports.

Before they were killed in a shootout with police, Bowdich said the couple stopped at a parking lot near the Inland Regional Center and visited an area near San Bernardino's Seccombe Lake. There was also "a lot of zig-zagging around, going back and forth on the highway," Bowdich said. "There is no rhyme or reason to it that we can find yet." Farook and Malik appear to have planned the attack for several months, putting together an arsenal of weapons, ammunition, and explosives, and the FBI has found no evidence the shooting was planned overseas. "This seems to be an inspired terrorist act," Bowdich said.

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Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.