As police officers kicked open doors in the Inland Regional Center in the search for the armed assailants who had just massacred 14 county employees, San Bernardino Police Chief Jarrod Burguan was outside scanning the terrain for a safe place to coordinate the sweeping emergency response.
He found it a block away — an abandoned house with a dirt yard and boarded-up windows, one of many pocking the streets of this hollowed-out city. Within minutes, police, fire and other emergency agency commanders huddled inside, out of gunshot range.
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Friends and relatives of Sierra Clayborn gather for her funeral at Mt. Moriah Missionary Baptist Church in South Los Angeles.
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A memorial service was held for Nicholas Thalasinos on Saturday morning at the Shiloh Messianic Congregation in Calimesa.
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A Shabbat service was part of the memorial for Nicholas Thalasinos at Shiloh Messianic Congregation in Calimesa, where Thalasinos and his wife, Jennifer, were integral parts of the congregation.
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A hired mover carries out personal items from the home of San Bernardino shooters Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik.
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Residents turn out to greet President Obama’s motorcade in San Bernardino.
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President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama greet San Bernardino Mayor R. Carey Davis, center, and Supervisor James Ramos outside Air Force One at the San Bernardino airport on Friday night.
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President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama leave in a motorcade, after arriving at San Bernardino International Airport, to meet privately with the families of the victims of the San Bernardino terrorist attack.
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President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama depart Air Force One at San Bernardino International Airport.
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San Bernardino residents Ashrie Matthews, left, Leah Brown and James Matthews line the street to cheer the president’s motorcade.
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President Obama stopped in San Bernardino on Friday evening to privately visit with the families of some of the victims of the Dec. 2 terrorist attack. Ashrie Matthews, left, Leah Brown and James Matthews joined others to cheer as the president’s motorcade passed.
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Anti-Obama protester Deann D’Lean, right, holds some of the many signs she brought to a small protest. In the background, Paul Rodriguez, Jr., with America First Latinos holds a bullhorn. Protesters were out on some San Bernardino street corners voicing their opposition to the president and Islamic State.
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People continue to visit the memorial just down the street from where the terrorist attack occurred.
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Family members and friends pay their respects to Robert Adams, one of the 14 victims killed in the San Bernardino shooting, during his graveside funeral service at Montecito Memorial Park in Colton.
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Summer Adams, center, grieves at the graveside ceremony for her husband, Robert Adams, at Montecito Memorial Park in Colton.
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A mourner sits on the curb with her head in her hands during the graveside ceremony for San Bernardino shooting victim Robert Adams at Montecito Memorial Park in Colton.
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Mourners embrace at the funeral for Aurora Godoy at Calvary Chapel in Gardena on Wednesday. Godoy was one of 14 killed in the attack in San Bernardino on Dec. 2. (Michael Robinson Chavez / Los Angeles Times)
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Mourners embrace at the funeral for Aurora Godoy at Calvary Chapel in Gardena on Wednesday. Godoy was one of 14 killed in the attack in San Bernardino on Dec. 2.
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Mourners arrive for the funeral for San Bernardino shooting victim Aurora Godoy at Calvary Chapel in Gardena on Wednesday.
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Shemiran Betbadal, mother of Bennetta Betbadal, is hugged by family after funeral services at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Rancho Cucamonga.
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Pallbearers carry the casket of Bennetta Bet-Badal during funeral services Monday at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Rancho Cucamonga. Bet-Badal was one of the 14 people killed in the San Barnardino shooting rampage.
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The husband and children of Bennetta Bet-Badal hug Monday following her funeral services at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Rancho Cucamonga.
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Funeral services were held for Bennetta Bet-Badal, one of the 14 people killed in the San Barnardino shooting rampage, at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Rancho Cucamonga.
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Funeral services were held for Bennetta Bet-Badal at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Rancho Cucamonga.
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Funeral services were held for Bennetta Bet-Badal at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Rancho Cucamonga.
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Twelve days after the mass shooting attack at the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino the flowers are beginning to wilt but hugs and paryers are still in abundance.
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Gwen Rodgers, assistant pastor at the Church of Living God, hugs Cindy Quinones, cousin of the slain Aurora Godoy, during a vigil at the makeshift memorial for the victims of the terrorist attacks in San Bernardino, Calif.
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Visitors arrive to pay their respects at the makeshift memorial outside the fenced off Inland Regional Center, in the background, the site of the deadly terrorist attacks, in San Bernardino, Calif.
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San Trinh, the longtime boyfriend of Tin Nguyen, 31, one of the victims of the San Bernardino terrorist attack, is consoled by family members as Nguyen’s casket is loaded into a hearse at St. Barbara’s Catholic Church in Santa Ana.
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Cousins of Tin Nguyen -- Trang Le, left, Tram Le and Krystal Le -- hold onto some of her personal items and cry as they watch her casket being lowered into the ground at her funeral at the Good Shepherd Cemetery in Huntington Beach.
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Pallbearers stand guard over the casket of the Tin Nguyen, a Cal State Fullerton graduate, at the start of her memorial service at St. Barbara’s Catholic Church in Santa Ana.
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Van Thanh Nguyen shouts her daughter’s name during her funeral at the Good Shepherd Cemetary in Huntington Beach. Tin Nguyen was 31.
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Family members and friends write messages on the side of the Tin Nguyen’s burial vault.
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Van Thanh Nguyen places her hand on her daughter’s casket while surrounded by friends and family.
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The casket of San Bernardino shooting victim Isaac Amanios leaves the St. Minas Orthodox Church during his funeral service in Colton.
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Two women cry during Isaac Amanios’ funeral service at the St. Minas Orthodox Church in Colton. Amanios, 60, is survived by his wife and three children.
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Funeral goers cry during Isaac Amanios’ service. Amanios had shared a cubicle with the male shooter at the San Bernardino County Public Health Department.
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Frineds and family stand during the funeral service for Isaac Amanios.
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Trenna Meins, center with daughters after the funeral for her husband Damian Meins at St. Catherine Of Alexandria in Riverside.
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Pallbearers escort the casket of Damian Meins at St. Catherine of Alexandria church in Riverside.
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Mourners gather at St. Catherine Of Alexandria in Riverside on Friday morning for the funeral of Damian Meins, one of 14 people killed in the San Bernardino shooting.
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Trenna Meins places a cross on her husband’s coffin. Damien Meins was killed in a terrorist attack at the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino.
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Mourners gather for the funeral of Damian Meins.
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Community members sing Amazing Grace during a candlelight vigil for Nicholas Thalasinos and the 13 other San Bernardino shooting victims at Fleming Park in Colton, Calif.
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COLTON, CA - DECEMBER 10, 2015: Jennifer Thalasinos,middle, fights back tears during a candlelight vigil for her slain husband Nicholas Thalasinos and the 13 other San Bernardino shooting victims at Fleming Park on December 10, 2015 in Colton, California.(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times) (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
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A portrait of Yvette Velasco, one of the victims of the deadly San Bernardino terrorist attacks, is placed at her funeral service at Forest Lawn Memorial Park, in Covina, Calif.
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Robert Velasco, father of Yvette Velasco, consoles a family member during Yvette’s funeral service at Forest Lawn Memorial Park, in Covina, Calif.
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COVINA, CALIF.--December 10, 2015 - The coffin of San Bernardino shooting victim, Yvette Velasco, is carried to the hearse following a private viewing for family at Forest Lawn Mortuary in Covina, Calif.
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An FBI dive team searches a lake located about two miles north of the Inland Regional Center in connection with last week’s terrorist attack and shootout that left the two attackers and 14 victims dead.
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An FBI dive team searches a lake near the Inland Regional Center in connection with last week’s terrorist attack.
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A memorial to victims of the terrorist attack in San Bernardino continues to grow near the Inland Regional Center, where the attack took place during a holiday party.
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One week after the mass shooting at the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino, the public is posting signs of gratitude and thanks like this one found at the San Bernardino Police Department.
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Family members and survivors paid their respects with a moment of silence at 11 a.m., exactly one week after the shooting occured at the Inland Regional Center.
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Customers wait for the doors to open at Turner’s Outdoorsman in San Bernardino Wednesday morning.
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Speaking during a Dec. 8 news conference, dispatcher Michelle Rodriguez of the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department becomes emotional as she recounts the events of the deadly San Bernardino attack.
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Trenna Meins, right, of Riverside, hugs friends and family during a vigil t the Riverside County Health Complex for her husband, Damian Meins, and 13 others killed in the San Bernardino shooting rampage.
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On Dec. 8, people bring flowers, candles and remembrances to a memorial to the San Bernardino shooting victims near the Inland Regional Center, the scene of the attack.
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Frank Cobet of the Get Loaded gun store in Grand Terrace shows a customer an AR-15 rifle on Dec. 8.
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Monica Gonzales relights candles Tuesday morning at a memorial for victims of the shooting rampage in San Bernardino.
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Community members and students gather for a Dec. 7 vigil on the Cal State San Bernardino campus to remember the victims of the deadly attack in the city.
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Patricia Corona of Colton, Calif., holds her children, Dejah Salvato, 7, and Brandon Salvato, 9, as they attend a Dec. 7 vigil at the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors headquarters to pay tribute to the victims of the city’s recent mass shootings.
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A prayer is said at the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors headquarters to honor the victms of the city’s recent mass shootings.
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FBI agents put up a screen to block the view of onlookers as they investigate the building at the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino.
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Syed Farook, father of the suspect in the San Bernardino mass shooting, Syed Rizwan Farook, arrives at his home to a swarm of reporters in Corona, Calif.
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Roses are laid at the entrance to San Bernardino County headquarters as thousands of employees returned to work Monday, five days after Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik opened fire on a gathering of his co-workers, killing 14 people and wounding 21.
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Trudy Raymundo, director the the San Bernardino County Department of Public Health, is surrounded by San Bernardino County supervisors as she addresses the media during a press conference Monday.
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John Ramos of Riverside pays his respects Monday at a makeshift memorial site honoring Wednesday’s shooting victims in San Bernardino.
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Claudia Zaragoza writes a message on a banner at the ever-growing memorial site to the victims of the recent mass shootings near the Inland Regional Center.
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Caroline Campbell, from left, Jessie Campbell and Rylee Ponce embrace as they pay their respects at the ever-growing memorial site for the victims of the recent mass shootings.
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Caroline Campbell embraces her son, David Malijan, 6, as they pay their respects at the ever-growing memorial site to the victims of the recent mass shootings near the Inland Regional Center.
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The Zafarullah family of Chino, originally of Pakistan, watches Obama’s address. Arshia, at left, is holding her 18-month-old nephew, Sohail Ahmed.
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One of several signs supporting the city of San Bernardino hang above the 215 Freeway on Sunday evening.
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Members of the Muslim community, such as Khadija Zadeh, lit candles and wrote messages to the families of victims of the San Bernardino shooting rampage during a memorial service at the Islamic Community Center of Redlands in Loma Linda.
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Ajarat Bada prays during a memorial service at the Islamic Community Center of Redlands in Loma Linda to remember the victims of the San Bernardino shooting rampage.
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Alaa Alsafadi, center, holds her son, Yousef, 4, during a memorial service at the Islamic Community Center of Redlands in Loma Linda.
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Riders from the Christian Motorcycle Association in San Bernardino pray at a growing makeshift memorial for San Bernardino shooting victims near the Inland Regional Center.
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A candlelight vigil dubbed “United We Stand,” took place at Granada Hills Charter High School on Saturday evening. The event was organized by Muslim Youth Los Angeles and Devonshire Area in Partnership.
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Ryan Reyes, boyfriend of San Bernardino shooting victim Larry Daniel Kaufman, hugs members of Dar Al Uloom Al Islamiyah of America mosque who brought roses to a memorial at the Sante Fe Dam on Saturday.
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A bullet hole in the window of a pick up truck where the shootout took place on San Bernardino Avenue.
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A composite photo of the 14 victims of the San Bernardino shooting rampage. (Courtesy of family / Los Angeles Times)
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People kneel in prayer for victims of the recent mass shootings at the Inland Regional Center, in San Bernardino.
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After sunset, people continue to arrive at the memorial site for the victims of the recent mass shootings at the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino.
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The scene after landlord Doyle Miller opened the doors and allowed the news media inside the Redlands town home where Syed Rizwan Farook and Tafsheen Malik, suspects of the deadly the recent mass shootings in San Bernardino, lived.
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Josie Ramirez-Herndon, center, and her daughter, Chelsie Ramirez, bottom left, join other community members as they pray during a candlelight vigil.
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Fabio Ahumada, a San Bernardino EMT, attends a vigil at San Manuel Stadium
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A couple embrace at the candlelight vigil to honor the victims of the mass shootings at the Inland Regional Center.
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Angel Meler-Baumgartner 11, who was a member of the Inland Regional Center, where the shooting occurred, attends a vigil at San Manuel Stadium for the victims.
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The Ahmadiyya Muslim Community USA held a press conference and prayer vigil at Baitul Hameed Mosque in Chino. The group denounced the massacre.
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Amy Mahmood, right, holds hands with a woman named Shenaz during the vigil at San Manuel Stadium.
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Ryan Reyes, center, breaks down after finding out his boyfriend of three years, Daniel Kaufman, 42, was one of those killed during Wednesday’s mass shooting at the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino.
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Ryan Reyes holds an image of his boyfriend Daniel Kaufman who was confirmed as one of the 14 victims of Wednesday’s mass shooting at the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino.
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Larry Jones, left, pastor of Crossover Outreach Church; Dr. Jeannetta Million, pastor of Victoria’s Believers Church; and Arnold Morales, pastor of King of Glory Church, pray for the victims and those involved in the mass shooting in San Bernardino.
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A coalition of church leaders comes together to pray for the victims and those involved in the San Bernardino shootings.
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FBI investigators inside the suspects’ Redlands home on Thursday morning.
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The investigation continues Thursday morning on San Bernardino Avenue, where two suspects in the mass shooting at the Inland Regional Center died in a shootout with police.
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Law enforcement stands guard at a police line as investigators work at a Redlands home after the San Bernardino attack.
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A SWAT team stands guard with a rifle pointed at a home that is being investigated by police after today’s San Bernardino’s mass shootings.
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Farhan Khan, second from right, who was identified as the brother-in-law of San Bernardino shooting suspect Syed Rizwan Farook, joins religious leaders during a news conference at the Council of American Islamic Relations in Anaheim.
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San Bernardino County sheriff’s deputies draw guns behind a minivan on Richardson St. during a search for suspects involved in the mass shooting of 14 people at the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino.
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Marie Cabrera, Sonya Gonzalez and Christine Duran, all of San Bernardino, pray after the mass shooting in San Bernardino.
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A woman and a man enter the Rudy C Hernandez Community Center after they and other people, who were at the scene of a mass shooting, arrived by bus to be reunited with their familys.
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Emergency personnel bring in a wounded person into Loma University Medical Center after the shooting in San Bernardino on Wednesday.
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A SWAT unit is on the move in San Bernardino.
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A member of the San Manual Fire Department takes the names of people evacuated from the scene of a mass shooting in San Bernardino before they are loaded onto buses and taken away from the area.
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Sheriff’s department SWAT members deploy on Richardson Street in San Bernardino on Wednesday.
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Sheriff’s department SWAT members deploy near San Bernardino Avenue and Richardson Street in San Bernardino on Wednesday.
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Evacuated workers join in a circle to pray on the San Bernardino Golf Course across the street from where a shooting occurred at the Inland Regional Center.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times) It was a no-nonsense move by a city police chief who has been praised for his cool-headed response in the chaotic aftermath of the worst terrorist attack on U.S. soil since Sept. 11.
When standing before television news cameras, Burguan’s cleanly shaven crown and thick, linebacker frame punctuated his blunt, straightforward accounts of the manhunt and the rapidly developing investigation.
“He was quite effective in giving out whatever information he could, calming the public and discouraging any other lunatics from committing acts of backlash,” said Brian Levin, a former New York City police officer and terrorism expert teaching at Cal State San Bernardino. “The response, of all the agencies, was a national model for first responder actions regarding terrorist attacks.”
Burguan knew that the nation was watching, and that San Bernardino was on edge. He held three news conferences on the day of the attack. He didn’t dodge questions but also knew some leads could not be made public.
“I believe in transparency,” Burguan, 45, said. “My philosophy has always been that if I can tell you, I’m going to tell you. And if I can’t tell you, I’m going to say I can’t tell you.”
Burguan also took to Twitter to provide instant updates and knock down rumors: “Suspects are down, one officer wounded. Details still unfolding,” he tweeted shortly after the assailants were killed in a gun battle with police.
On Friday, he was at home and sending out a series of tweets explaining why a UPS station was evacuated after a delivery driver spotted a package addressed to one of the killers. “Item was safe, posed no threat.” Moments later, he watched, amazed, as his tweet popped up on a television news broadcast.
“The power of social media,” Burguan said.
Burguan, named chief two years ago after two decades as a San Bernardino officer, is uneasy with the attention, sensitive to the lives lost and victims maimed in the terrorist attack and the long list of agencies, including the FBI and San Bernardino Sheriff’s Department, involved in the case.
His pride, however, is difficult to hide.
“We knew the response was good, we knew people were very, very happy that we hunted down these guys and caught them very quickly,” he said. “There’s no doubt that these guys were going to do something else. They had an arsenal on them. They were going to continue fighting.”
Burguan, a former football star at Bloomington Christian High School, just outside of Rialto, was 21 when he joined the San Bernardino Police Department in 1992. It was near the height of the crack epidemic, when gunfire echoed around the city almost every night and the homicide rate was double what it is today. He worked the night shift and went to night school, eventually earning undergraduate and master’s degrees at the University of Redlands.
San Bernardino was a different city then. Lumbering C-141 Starlifters still flew out of Norton Air Force Base. There were two malls in town and a hopping restaurant row. Burguan, living on a traffic officer’s salary, failed to qualify for a loan when he tried to buy a home up near Cal State San Bernardino.
“I watched the decline. I’ve watched businesses leave, and I saw Norton close,” he said.
This once-proud blue-collar city has been hamstrung by years of bankruptcy, poverty and noxious politics. Since 2009, the police force has been cut by 100 officers. The anti-gang and other crime prevention programs “are a shell” of what they used to be, he said. There is a proposal to beef up the agency over the next five years, but it is before a federal bankruptcy judge awaiting approval.
“We’re largely a reactive agency. I hate to say it, but that’s the truth of the matter,” Burguan said. “Our response times are not good. And the irony is, people are praising us for our response to this incident.”
On Wednesday morning, as Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik burst into the Inland Regional Center during a party for county health workers and opened gunfire, Burguan was three miles away at San Bernardino City Hall for a meeting with department heads.
Burguan’s cellphone lit up with a call, but was on silent. It was from one of his captains.
“I ignored the call, twice,” the chief said. “Then he texted me — “911.”
The first San Bernardino officer arrived on the scene within four minutes of the first 911 call, and Burguan pulled up minutes later. Police cars and ambulances clogged Waterman Avenue, and teams of officers were evacuating the complex and going office to office searching for the assailants.
Witnesses, panicked and fleeing to safety, gave varied accounts of the shooting. They described two, maybe three shooters, and possibly a getaway driver in a black SUV. They were described as white or Latino males, armed with assault rifles.
“Someone came out of the building [and] said, ‘I think it may be [a] co-worker. This Farook guy,’” Burguan said. “‘He was at the party with us, and he left.’”
Burguan was with San Bernardino County Sheriff John McMahon and David Bowdich, assistant director in charge of the FBI office in Los Angeles, in a mobile command trailer in the afternoon when police radios lit up with chatter from a police pursuit of Farook and Malik. Their rented SUV was being tailed from their Redlands home into San Bernardino when they opened fire on police.
“I will tell you that’s a heart-wrenching moment when you’re listening to your officers in a gun battle,” he said. “You hear that an officer had been hit, and your heart just stops.”
The officer, who sustained a leg wound, already is out of the hospital. Farook and Malik were killed in the firefight.
Riverside Police Chief Sergio Diaz credited the successful manhunt and efforts to prevent any additional loss of life to the effective cooperation between all the law enforcement agencies, which can be an issue in other jurisdictions.
“In Jarrod’s particular case, he embodied professionalism,” Diaz said. “The idea that there’s no egos there, that you sacrifice your ego for the mission.”
When evidence mounted of the assailants’ possible links to terrorist organizations, Burguan said he had no issue with allowing the FBI to take command. He recalls Bowdich joking with him, saying, “It’s not like in the movies when the FBI charges in and says, ‘We’re in charge.’”
“They brought worldwide resources into this investigation,” he said.
Meanwhile, San Bernardino remains on edge. Burguan said he’s committed to increasing police patrols throughout the city in the near future, despite the cost, to assure residents that they are safe. And though he appreciates all the goodwill, he knows it won’t last forever and his job won’t get any easier.
Just last month, one of his officers was killed by a suspected drunk driver after dropping off an arrestee at the county jail. And earlier this year, when a 2014 video surfaced showing an officer using enough force to allegedly dislocate the elbow of a handcuffed suspect in a car theft case, Burguan quickly put out a statement vowing to investigate the incident. He assured residents that he was aware of the scrutiny police agencies were facing nationwide.
Terrance Stone, who founded the Young Visionaries gang intervention program, said the police agency is slowly recovering from a “real rocky relationship” with residents in many neighborhoods, especially among African Americans. Police officials have made a concerted effort to salve those wounds from years ago, and the officers’ quick action to hunt down the two terrorists will only add to that goodwill, Stone said.
“They have to keep that up. One bad incident will change everything, and [they’ll] be back to Square One,” Stone said. “This is San Bernardino, not Beverly Hills.”
Burguan said he’s well aware of that, half-jokingly adding that “next week they’ll go back to being mad at me.” But, he said, this past week the San Bernardino Police Department showed the world what it’s capable of, and that’s something to build on.
“No question, we’ve been through a turbulent time,” he said. “But this is my home.”
phil.willon@latimes.com
Twitter: @philwillon
