San Bernardino Suspect Syed Farook's Troubled Childhood: Father Was Alcoholic, Mother Alleged Domestic Abuse In Court Papers

Suspected San Bernardino, California, shooter Syed Rizwan Farook's childhood may have been a difficult one. Court documents from 2006-08 showed his mother, Rafia Farook, alleged her husband was a physically abusive, negligent alcoholic who threatened to kill himself on a daily basis, the Los Angeles Times reported Thursday. She said her children would have to protect her from her husband, who Reuters reported is also named Syed Farook.

"He is always mad,” she said, adding he tried to hit her and dropped a television set on her. “Screaming on me, shouting at my kids for no reason. … My son came in between to save me."

Rafia Farook called herself the sole caregiver of her children, and moved out with three of them. The mother eventually filed for domestic violence protection, the Associated Press reported. Her divorce case was dismissed, but she later got a legal separation based on irreconcilable differences, the Times reported. At that point, in 2008, she said she was living with her son Syed Rizwan Farook -- the San Bernardino suspect. The husband was in Pakistan.

Syed Rizwan Farook, 28, is accused of killing 14 people and injuring 21 Wednesday at the Inland Regional Center where his office was hosting a holiday party. Police said he acted with Tashfeen Malik, his 27-year-old wife. Both were killed in a shootout with police in Redlands on Wednesday afternoon. Time reported officers found pipe bombs, bullets and "hundreds of tools" at their house.

"Clearly they were equipped and they could have done another attack,” San Bernardino police Chief Jarrod Burguan told reporters.

Their motive remained unclear, but CNN reported the pair may have been radicalized by terrorists or driven by a workplace dispute.

A man who identified himself as Syed Farook's father described his son as religious to the New York Daily News. "He would go to work, come back, go to pray, come back," he said. "He's Muslim."