NEW HAVEN -- As one of the lead investigators in the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing and the first World Trade Center attack in 1993, former New Haven FBI Special Agent Lenneth Gray is paying close attention to the San Bernardino massacre.
The question most reporters keep asking: Was the mass shooting, which left 14 dead and 21 injured, an act of terror? There are certain markers counterterrorism experts use in coming to a conclusion.
“The travel is certainly of interest and the country of destination is of interest,” said Gray, now a lecturer at the University of New Haven. “Also, the fact that they had long weapons, that they had handguns.”
Gray, who for 24 years was a special agent in New Haven’s FBI office, adds that the presence of explosive devices in both in the assailants' home and in the building where the shootings occurred, is another check in the terrorism column.
“That is not something that you do when you all of a sudden have a problem with workplace and all of a sudden decide to attack,” said Gray.
Perhaps the most important information, according to Gray, is that the male suspect “was recently in Saudi Arabia and the fact that his wife is Pakistani, that was living in Saudi Arabia.”
Meanwhile, as the country asks why, victims and their friends and family are focusing on moving forward.
Metashar Bankhead-Dillon, an East Hartford businesswoman who grew up in southern California and still has friends and family there, tells FOX 61 a close friend of hers works at the Inland Regional Center, the San Bernardino building where gunfire erupted.
Bankhead-Dillon's friend should have been in the building at the time of the shooting, but her friend told her “something said ‘get up and take your lunch break early today.’” She also noted her friend was off-site at lunch when the shooting went down.
Bankhead-Dillon says she also learned one of her family members also works in that San Bernardino building, but, like her friend, had left just prior to the gunfire.
When she moved east, she told her West Coast family and friends she would be there for them if they were ever in need.
“But, I would always think of an earthquake,” said Bankhead-Dillon. “I never thought it would be a mass shooting, murder.
