Mandy Pifer, a therapist, was with a shopper in Los Angeles on Dec. 2, 2015, when she obtained a textual content a few mass capturing in San Bernardino. Her fiance, Shannon Johnson, was a restaurant inspector there.
She didn’t panic till, driving dwelling, she heard on the radio that the victims have been staff of the county’s well being division. She grabbed her telephone and dialed Shannon’s quantity time and again, nevertheless it stored going straight to voicemail. That’s when, she mentioned, she knew, “in my bones,” he was gone.
She was proper. Earlier that morning, the person she beloved and deliberate to marry used his physique to defend a 27-year-old co-worker in what would change into the deadliest terror assault on U.S. soil since 9/11. His final phrases, as he held his terrified colleague shut, have been, “I received you.”
Johnson’s loss of life “modified the entire trajectory of my life,” Pifer mentioned by means of tears in a current interview. “All the things now could be earlier than or after ‘the occasion.’”
Tuesday marks the tenth yr since restaurant inspector Syed Rizwan Farook, a U.S. citizen, and his Pakistan-born spouse, Tashfeen Malik, walked into his workplace vacation occasion with military-style assault rifles and shot greater than 30 individuals, killing 14.
The unspeakable violence, apparently impressed by jihadist propaganda on-line, thrust the often-overlooked, and financially bankrupt, metropolis of San Bernardino into the worldwide highlight.
1. Police and emergency autos line Waterman Avenue in entrance of the Inland Regional Middle in San Bernardino, scene of a mass capturing on Dec. 2, 2015. (Luis Sinco/Los Angeles Occasions) 2. Then-San Bernardino Police Chief Jarrod Burguan speaks throughout a press convention after a mass capturing on the Inland Regional Middle on Dec. 2, 2015. (Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Occasions) 3. San Bernardino County sheriff‘s deputies draw weapons and crouch behind a minivan on Richardson Road throughout a seek for the suspects concerned within the mass capturing. (Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Occasions)
The U.S. has suffered deadlier shootings since San Bernardino — together with the 2016 bloodbath at Pulse, an LGBTQ+ nightclub in Orlando, Fla., wherein one other American impressed by on-line terrorist propaganda killed 49 — however the December 2015 California assault had essentially the most sweeping influence on American politics, and ushered within the nation’s present period of divisive immigration enforcement.
Lower than per week after the killings, then-presidential candidate Donald Trump used the tragedy to name for “a complete and full shutdown of Muslims coming into america till our nation’s representatives can determine what the hell is happening.”
His proposed “Muslim ban” was broadly criticized, together with from members of his personal occasion. However Trump stood by his phrases, saying on “Good Morning America” that “we are actually at conflict.”
That proposal was so standard with Republican voters, it helped propel Trump to the occasion’s nomination the next summer time and helped win him the election in November 2016. Per week after taking the oath of workplace in January 2017, Trump imposed a ban on individuals touring from seven majority Muslim nations, however not Pakistan or Saudi Arabia, the place Malik had lived.
Trump’s stance was hardened by final week’s assault on two Nationwide Guard troopers in Washington, D.C. An Afghan nationwide — who was granted asylum in america after working with the CIA in his native nation — has been charged with first-degree homicide within the capturing, which killed one of many troopers and left the opposite in essential situation.
The president mentioned he desires to “completely pause migration” from poorer nations and expel tens of millions of migrants from america by revoking their authorized standing.
A painful day for survivors and members of the family
The Curtain of Braveness memorial on the San Bernardino County Authorities Middle honors the 14 individuals slain within the Dec. 2, 2015, terrorist assault on the Inland Regional Middle.
(Christina Home / Los Angeles Occasions)
At 10:59 that December morning, San Bernardino police dispatchers obtained their first report of a “attainable lively shooter” on the Inland Regional Middle. Farook and Malik had walked into the Christmas occasion and opened hearth, killing and wounding dozens of his co-workers.
They escaped out a aspect door and died hours later in a spectacular gunfight with police on a busy roadside lower than two miles away.
A decade later, survivors, members of the family, police and terrorism specialists are nonetheless sorting by means of the wreckage the couple left behind. They’re attempting to attract helpful classes and to place shattered lives, and a shattered neighborhood, again collectively.
For some residents who misplaced family members, today is so painful they’ve informed county officers they’d favor if there have been no public memorial every year.
For homeland safety analysts, the San Bernardino assault was a wake-up name. On the time, they have been nonetheless intensely targeted on stopping terrorists educated in overseas lands from infiltrating America’s porous borders — because the 9/11 hijackers had. Now they have been confronted with the grave risk that Americans have been being radicalized on-line.
Members of the Arias household — Junior, 2, and Jenesis, 5 — say a prayer with their mother and father, Robert and Sierra, because the household pay their respects on Dec. 3, 2015, to victims of the San Bernardino assault.
(Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Occasions)
A month earlier, terrorists educated by Islamic State in Syria had killed 130 individuals in a string of suicide bombings and a mass capturing within the heart of Paris. That set safety forces around the globe on excessive alert for military-age younger males who had lately traveled to the war-torn Center East nation.
However Farook was an American citizen born in Chicago and raised in Riverside. Malik was born in Pakistan and had lived most of her life in Saudi Arabia. Like many different {couples}, they met on-line and she or he emigrated to the U.S. on a fiancee visa in July 2014. They married and, on the time of the assault, had a 6-month-old child woman.
Understandably, they weren’t on any safety pressure’s radar and had no obvious hyperlinks to worldwide terror networks — till Malik pledged allegiance to the ISIS chief on Fb shortly earlier than the assault.
Investigators later found that the 2 had mentioned jihad and martyrdom in personal on-line chats for at the very least two years earlier than that fateful day, and that that they had drawn inspiration from Islamic State’s strong social media, which included movies depicting a Jordanian pilot being burned to loss of life inside a locked cage and the beheadings of two American journalists. The group had additionally posted movies exhibiting youngsters horribly maimed by U.S. airstrikes within the Center East, exhorting sympathizers around the globe to stand up and take revenge.
“That actually received the FBI’s consideration and galvanized them to start out wanting on the propaganda ISIS was placing out” on YouTube and thru different on-line platforms, mentioned Robert Pape, a professor who research terrorism and different safety threats on the College of Chicago.
Not one of the members of the family of San Bernardino capturing victims interviewed for this story supported the ban on individuals touring from Muslim nations.
“I disagreed with it fully,” mentioned Renee Wetzel, who was 32 years outdated when her husband, Mike, was killed within the assault, leaving her to lift their six youngsters with out him.
Wetzel mentioned she was shocked that your complete populations of these nations — amounting to tens of millions of individuals — might be banned from touring to America due to an evil act dedicated by two people, one in all whom was born and raised within the U.S. and one other who didn’t come from any of the nations on the record.
“That simply blows my thoughts,” Wetzel mentioned. For lots of people who immigrate, America is a “final resort,” she mentioned. “When did we cease caring about different individuals?”
In Muslim communities, alarm and dread
Muslims together with Hussam Ayloush, government director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Los Angeles, heart, pray at Dar Al Uloom Al-Islamiyah of America, a mosque in San Bernardino, on Nov. 26, 2025.
(Christina Home / Los Angeles Occasions)
For a lot of Muslims in and round San Bernardino, the assault provoked fears of violent backlash. In response, Hussam Ayloush, government director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Los Angeles, organized a information convention inside hours. He introduced Farook’s brother-in-law, Farhan Khan, who stood earlier than TV cameras to denounce the violence and supply condolences to the victims.
Nonetheless, Farook’s household and the broader neighborhood have been so frightened that in a go to to Khan’s home shortly after the assault, Ayloush heard youngsters crying. He was shocked to study the household was hungry as a result of they have been too scared to go away the home and purchase groceries.
Neighborhood members hearken to audio system at a candlelight vigil at San Manuel Stadium in San Bernardino on Dec. 3, 2015, honoring the victims of the mass capturing on the Inland Regional Middle.
(Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Occasions)
Ayloush purchased some for them, including: “It broke my coronary heart as a result of nobody there in that home was responsible of something.”
Burying the shooters grew to become a separate ordeal. Native cemeteries refused to take the our bodies as a result of that they had obtained threats, mentioned Ayloush, who spent a number of days looking for a spot that will take them.
In San Bernardino, there “have been individuals tenting outdoors the mortuary,” Ayloush mentioned, so the our bodies needed to be spirited out a again exit.
The identify of the out-of-town cemetery that ultimately accepted them, Ayloush mentioned, was made public, and it was vandalized simply after the attackers have been buried. Nonetheless, due to neighborhood efforts, the area largely averted “this changing into an act that pitted individuals in opposition to one another on the idea of faith or nationality.”
1. Muslims pray at Dar Al Uloom Al-Islamiyah of America, a mosque in San Bernardino. (Christina Home/Los Angeles Occasions) 2. Spiritual books contained in the mosque. (Christina Home/Los Angeles Occasions) 3. Dr. Tariq Jamil, a pulmonary specialist in San Bernardino, places his sneakers again on after prayer at Dar Al Uloom Al-Islamiyah of America. (Christina Home/Los Angeles Occasions) 4. Hussam Ayloush, government director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Los Angeles, is photographed at Dar Al Uloom Al-Islamiyah of America. (Christina Home/Los Angeles Occasions)
For the county’s Division of Environmental Well being Providers, the speedy problem was serving to surviving staff deal with their trauma. When the capturing occurred, staff had gathered for a coaching session and vacation celebration in a convention room on the Inland Regional Middle.
A number of survivors had hassle returning to their workspace on the second ground of the San Bernardino County Authorities Middle.
“We couldn’t let individuals come again to their cubicles as a result of there have been so many individuals lacking,” mentioned San Bernardino County Assessor Josie Gonzales, who was a county supervisor on the time.
The employees have been briefly moved as their ground was fully reworked. Some who have been current that day nonetheless work for the county, she mentioned. Others by no means got here again to work. Some moved away.
Exterior the San Bernardino County Authorities Middle, there’s now a Curtain of Braveness — 14 bronze alcoves, every curved like a protecting wall and devoted to one of many victims. It was accomplished and unveiled in 2022.
Textbook response by legislation enforcement
Det. Shaun Sandoval is photographed on the San Bernardino Police Division on Nov. 18, 2025. Sandoval was one of many first law enforcement officials to enter the Inland Regional Middle on Dec. 2, 2015.
(Christina Home / Los Angeles Occasions)
For legislation enforcement, the fast and decisive response to safe the scene — so the surviving victims may start receiving support — grew to become a worldwide mannequin for find out how to deal with mass shootings. The necessity for immediate confrontation grew to become painfully apparent years later when a Texas police division didn’t observe San Bernardino’s instance throughout the Uvalde college capturing, with tragic outcomes.
Shaun Sandoval, a patrol officer with the San Bernardino Police Division, was one of many first to reach. The scene was pure chaos: thick smoke from gunpowder nonetheless hanging within the air, water cascading from ruptured pipes within the ceiling, alarms blaring, strobe lights flashing.
However none of that in comparison with the sight of so many individuals on the bottom, “in agony and ache, screaming for assist,” Sandoval recalled.
Mike Madden, now retired from the San Bernardino Police Division, is photographed in Beaumont, Calif. He was one of many first rescuers to enter the Inland Regional Middle after the capturing on Dec. 2, 2015. .
(Christina Home / Los Angeles Occasions)
As three different officers arrived, they realized how ill-equipped they have been: None of them had a rifle, one had no physique armor. If the shooters have been inside ready for them, they’d be hopelessly outgunned. But when they didn’t go in, individuals on the bottom have been going to bleed to loss of life.
In order that they drew their pistols (Sandoval additionally had a shotgun), gathered in a defensive diamond formation, and began inching their well past the outstretched, pleading arms of injured individuals, targeted solely on discovering and confronting the shooters.
“I bear in mind the victims reaching out, I bear in mind individuals asking for assist and crying,” Sandoval mentioned. “Sadly, even in spite of everything this time, these sounds should not forgotten.”
It took just a few minutes — which felt like “eternity,” Sandoval mentioned — to find out the shooters had fled by means of a separate exit. That meant different police and paramedics who have been ready outdoors may rush in and begin saving lives.
Jarrod Burguan, former San Bernardino police chief, is photographed in La Quinta on Nov. 22, 2025. Burguan led the Police Division throughout the assault 10 years in the past.
(Christina Home / Los Angeles Occasions)
Since then, the actions of these 4 officers have change into a textbook instance of find out how to reply, taught in legislation enforcement coaching seminars around the globe. “I believe the outdated means of standing outdoors and ready ceaselessly for increasingly individuals to return earlier than you go in, these days are lengthy gone,” Sandoval mentioned.
That lesson was brutally strengthened in Uvalde, Texas, in 2022, when a lone gunman entered an elementary college and shot 19 youngsters and two lecturers. A few of the injured died whereas police — who had loads of armor and high-powered rifles — waited greater than an hour to enter the classroom and confront the shooter.
Retired San Bernardino Police Chief Jarrod Burguan mentioned the heroism of his officers that day supplied a recruiting enhance to the beleaguered division, which had misplaced greater than a 3rd of its members as a consequence of municipal chapter.
“In an odd means, there was a silver lining for the psyche of the group,” Burguan mentioned. “It restored slightly little bit of pleasure.”
“Thought we have been going to be collectively ceaselessly”
A memorial bench in San Bernardino honors those that misplaced their lives or had lives modified within the terrorist assault.
(Christina Home / Los Angeles Occasions)
For some victims’ members of the family, it supplied a goal.
Tina Meins, whose father, Damian, who was shot 5 instances and died on the foot of the occasion’s Christmas tree, vowed to make one thing good come of the tragedy.
“So I stop my job, I went and I received a public coverage diploma from Georgetown,” she mentioned in a current interview.
She’s now a senior program supervisor at Everytown for Gun Security, a nationwide advocacy group that lobbies for gun management. The work is rewarding, she mentioned, however all the time tinged with remorse.
“Each victory is slightly bittersweet,” Meins mentioned, as a result of she will be able to’t share it together with her dad. “He’s the particular person you need to inform. And each problem is slightly tougher as a result of he’s not round.”
Like everybody else interviewed for this story, Meins mentioned she has observed that curiosity within the San Bernardino capturing has waned considerably during the last decade.
“It’s attainable persons are simply so desensitized as a result of mass acts of violence are commonplace, ubiquitous,” Meins mentioned.
With the roar of gunfire lengthy pale, and the pressing name to motion colliding with the gradual grind of politics as ordinary, what’s left for many survivors is a profound sense of loss, an vacancy that nothing fairly fills.
“We thought we have been going to be collectively ceaselessly,” Wetzel mentioned final month. However her youngsters, who ranged from 1 yr outdated to 14 on the time of the capturing, have now spent a decade passing milestones — birthdays, father-daughter dances, driving checks — with out their dad at their aspect.
However it’s the little, nagging empty areas that plague her most.
Each evening when Mike got here dwelling, she would meet him on the door, give him a hug and a kiss, after which hand off the newborn, Wetzel mentioned with a chuckle. For years after the capturing, simply earlier than six p.m., she may nonetheless really feel the reduction constructing — “my physique would simply, like, count on him to return strolling in” — solely to have it snatched away when the door didn’t open.
A plaque with the names of the 14 individuals killed within the Dec. 2, 2015, assault on the Inland Regional Middle in San Bernardino. The victims are honored together with survivors and first responders within the Curtain of Braveness memorial.
(Christina Home / Los Angeles Occasions)
The 27-year-old colleague whom Shannon Johnson saved — who declined to be interviewed — has gone on together with her life. She and her husband had their first youngster not lengthy after the capturing, they now have a second, they usually nonetheless reside within the space close to her mother and father and sisters, in line with a pal.
For Johnson’s fiancee, Mandy Pifer, time stood nonetheless for some time. She struggled with despair and dependancy, she mentioned, including, “I simply grew to become sort of a blob of an individual. … I simply didn’t care.”
It took many of the decade to tug out of that gap, she mentioned, to start out touring and having fun with life once more. However she nonetheless lives in the identical residence with the aged cat she and Shannon adopted earlier than he died.
She remembers him each time she strokes the cat, particularly if she’s sporting quick sleeves, exposing the small black letters tattooed on her forearm: “I received you.”
