After the Dec. 2 attack by a radicalized Muslim couple in San Bernardino that killed 14 people, FBI Director James B. Comey gave a briefing in which he urged the public to be vigilant but not to live in fear. “Do not let fear become disabling,” he said, adding that it’s important “if you see something that doesn’t make sense, you say something to somebody.”

But what “doesn’t make sense,” or is considered suspicious activity, can vary greatly from person to person, community to community.

A Modesto resident said he was at the gun range at Manteca Sportsmen Inc. on Dec. 5 when he saw a group of seven or so “Muslims” firing rifles with ammunition clips far bigger than the 10-round capacity allowed under California law.

Charles Cleveland said he was so upset, he left the facility. In the wake of the massacre at the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino, “just the idea of seeing Muslims shooting was shocking to me,” he said. “Any other day, I wouldn’t have been caught so off guard.”

Asked how he figured the people were Muslim, Cleveland said he based his determination on their clothing, including head coverings worn by the the one or two women in the group.

He didn’t call authorities, he said, because the group wasn’t acting “outside the law.”

Cleveland said the group was firing AR-15s, the same rifle he has, but with clips larger than 10 rounds, plus another rifle with “a big old long banana clip in it.” It’s possible, though, that they had plugs in the magazines to limit the ammunition, he said. He did not note how often they had to reload.

Did Cleveland make the right call by not calling? The Bee asked some local law enforcement leaders to share their thoughts on what rises to the threshold of “suspicious activity.”

The Stanislaus County Sheriff’s Department and Modesto and Turlock police departments concurred that in this case, the observation of people – regardless of whether they might be Muslim – using what looked like illegal ammo clips was reason enough to alert authorities.

What race or religion they appear to be doesn’t matter, said Modesto police spokeswoman Heather Graves. “If they’re shooting high-capacity weapons or just behaving suspiciously in general, that’s something we’d want you to call in.”

Consulting with police Chief Galen Carroll, she added, “Don’t shrug it off or wait for someone else to make the call. We will assess the situation and decide from there what the next steps will be.”

If there’s no belief of an immediate threat, the number to call is nonemergency dispatch at 209-552-2470.

“We ask all of our citizens if they ‘see something, say something,’ ” said Turlock Police Department spokesman Sgt. Stephen Webb. “We would rather know about something suspicious and determine it not to be a problem than to have someone discount it and not report it.”

Turlock’s nonemergency dispatch number is 209-668-1200.

And Sheriff Adam Christianson said that while he’d rather the public err on the side of caution, an activity shouldn’t be considered suspicious based solely on the perception of someone’s race or faith.

“If they’re dressed like Muslims dress and are out on range, so what? So are African Americans, Sikhs, Latinos and whites,” the sheriff said. “That being said, if somebody is trained and well-informed on weapons and sees somebody with a rifle with a 30-round magazine, that’s illegal, and they should call and say, ‘Come out and check that out.’

“I guess what we’re looking for is if people are concerned enough about something, regardless of anything else. We’ll run it to ground and determine the credibility (of the report). We would rather get more information than less.”

The FBI has promised that any tips will be investigated objectively and anonymously, Christianson said, so as not to create an environment in which people don’t report because they fear retaliation. Local law enforcement often is the first line of defense, the sheriff said, and “we want the community to trust us enough to report and let us assess.”

The Sheriff’s Department nonemergency dispatch numbers are 209-552-2468 and (on the West Side) 800-273-4911.

Ahmad Kayello, imam of the Islamic Center of Modesto, said he wonders why Cleveland did not call the authorities if he thought the ammunition clips possibly were illegal.

“If we are considering ourselves good residents … we forbid evil, whether it is coming from Muslims or non-Muslims,” he said. “When this man saw that, why not report it if he is concerned about the safety of the community?”

Whether the people shooting at the range were Muslim or not shouldn’t matter, the imam said; Muslims who are legal residents share the same rights under the Constitution. “The point is we all abide and go by the law. If a Muslim violates the law or a Christian violates, we have to be honest with ourselves and dutiful to our country, and we have to help correct that.”

He also noted that acts of terrorism in the U.S. perpetrated by non-Muslims don’t seem to generate similar suspicions. A white Christian who called himself a “warrior for the babies” killed three people last month at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs, Colo. But Kayello said he didn’t think that had users of gun ranges on alert for the behavior of white people.

The imam also said it’s a problem that many people can’t differentiate not only between peaceful Muslims and radicals but between Muslims and people of other faiths, such as Sikhs and Hindus. The shooter at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin in the summer of 2012, who killed six people and wounded four others, believed he was “getting some bad Muslims,” Kayello said.

There’s a good chance the group Cleveland saw at the Manteca shooting range was Sikh. An employee, who asked not to be identified, said he was not working at the time Cleveland was there Dec. 5, but a few weeks earlier, a Sikh wedding party visited the range.

“They were all registered and did everything properly and had a range master” working with them because only a couple of people in the group knew how to shoot, the employee said.

As for the clips Cleveland saw, the employee said, “Anybody who does walk on with a 30-round magazine automatically is told it’s illegal and to put it away. The exception – and this happens a lot – is when the magazine is fitted with a block that limits the capacity to 10 rounds,” he said.

In addition to checking equipment when people register to shoot, “We watch everybody who loads and how many rounds they load,” the employee said. “We have range masters, and we do have busy days, but we also have a club full of members, and they’re all debriefed and know what to look for.”

The range’s website also notes that among the criteria to be eligible to shoot, a person must be a U.S. citizen or legal resident.

None of the three local law-enforcement agencies reported a rise in reports of suspicious activity since the San Bernardino attacks.

And Kayello said that other than mentions of some dirty looks, members of the Modesto Islamic community haven’t reported to him any harassment. Since the media attention focused on the woman involved in the San Bernardino shootings, he has, however, cautioned women to limit their errands or go out accompanied by their husbands or other women.

Law enforcement also has been attentive, he said Thursday. “Just yesterday the police stopped by the mosque just to be sure everything is safe,” he said.

Kayello is a member of the local interfaith council, which discusses issues such as the shooting and works to educate the community. “We’re living here; we’re making this community of different religions, different faiths,” he said. “The diversity here is beautiful – that’s the beautiful thing about it, that we’re all working as one family.”