
The intent of this three-hour tour seems to have had political undertones.
In persuading the landlord of the apartment that was home to Syed Rizwan Farook to pry off a board sealing the entrance, reporters with major news outlets may have seen themselves as performing a public service: that of showing that Farook and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, were just your ordinary young family, complete with photo album, a home computer, and even a bowl of mixed nuts on a table in the living room.
Whether their motive was political or a lust for ratings, everything that the press handled — a calendar (with no “special dates” in December marked off), a driver’s license, copies of the Koran — is now tainted evidence, inadmissible in a court of law.
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The landlord, shown below, denies having allowed anyone into the apartment, maintaining that the media “rushed” him.
According to the Blaze, CNN’s law enforcement analyst, Harry Houck, claims to have gotten “chills” watching members of the media contaminate the crime scene:
I don’t see any fingerprint dust on the walls where they went in there and checked for fingerprints for other people that might have been connected with these two. You’ve got documents laying all over the place; you’ve got shredded documents…. You have passports, you’ve got drivers’ licenses — now you have thousands of fingerprints all over inside this crime scene.
I am so shocked, I cannot believe it.
The public affairs officer at the San Bernardino’s Sheriff’s office also claimed to be in shock telling the Blaze he had “no clue” what was happening.
This is a developing story. Details will be added as new information becomes available.
*UPDATE* Ben Shapiro notes that it was not the media alone, that according to a CNN reporter stated, there was “a woman with a dog walking through the house” and that a man caught on camera carried a Popsicle out of the apartment
Shapiro also quotes a reporter from the Los Angeles News Group as sating, “Det. Dan Elton of @RedlandsPD says no one other than the coroner and family members legally have a right to be inside the home.”
Finally, the landlord has reportedly now been escorted away by law enforcement.