More than one month later, the local community is still trying to sort through the memories of carnage, which for some was close to home, and to others, was as far as Paris.
Criterion of La Sierra University, Jan. 21, 2016
Image credit: Jonah Valdez
On Dec. 2 of last year, in the middle of dead week, while students were cramming information for finals and grinding out essays that were assigned on week one, the student body of La Sierra University hardly gave pause to a deadly shooting that unfolded 20 miles northeast in San Bernardino, as Syed Rizwan Farook, a Southern California native, and his wife, Tasheen Malik, reportedly opened fire on Farook’s co-workers in the Inland Empire Regional Center during a holiday party, killing 14 and injuring 22 others.
More than one month later, the local community is still trying to sort through the memories of carnage, which for some was close to home, and to others, was as far as Paris.
Since the attack, the Federal Bureau of Investigation declared that Farook and Malik were “homegrown violent extremists,” gaining their inspiration from foreign terrorist groups that ascribe to radical ideologies, or as President Barack Obama described it in a national address, “a perverted interpretation of Islam.” This makes the shooting, which left 16 dead and injured 24 others, the worst terrorist attack on United States soil since September 11, 2001.
The day could have been a lot worse. According to a Los Angeles Times report, officials found 12 pipe bombs and an additional 4,000 rounds of ammunition in Farook and Malik’s Redlands home. Farook’s neighbor and childhood friend, Enrique Marquez, admitted to authorities that he and Farook had made plans to toss the pipe bombs at eastbound cars on the 91 Freeway during rush hour and shoot at the stopped cars. They also planned to throw pipe bombs into the cafeteria area of Riverside Community College .
However, spare the closed gates and a campus-wide email, you would have never known a national tragedy had just struck several hours ago, a mere 23-minute drive from the La Sierra University campus.
“I did not know that there were shootings going on in San Bernardino until my dad called me to check up on me,” Stephanie Constanza said, a senior management major. Luke Gardner, a resident assistant at Sierra Towers joined Constanza in puzzlement. “I didn’t know about it until someone told me later that day,” Gardner said.
While some were oblivious to the attack, others treated the affair as almost anticipated. “It’s not uncommon for that area,” Robert Shetler said, a sophomore business major, offering a grim picture of San Bernardino, which according to the F.B.I., has a murder and violent crime rate more than three times the national average. “So while it’s tragic, it’s not surprising—comes with the turf.”
Although the day was as common as any other to some on campus, it was not completely without irregularity.
I. Godsend or Omen
At 8:35 a.m., La Sierra University security ordered a campus wide lock-down drill.
Students were sent an email to lock all doors and gates. Office telephone speakers and outdoor call boxes broadcasted a verbal warning from one of the security guards, speaking with a monotone voice: “This is a campus wide lockdown drill.”
The lockdown provoked what ifs and hypothetical scenarios in the minds of most, especially since people were still reeling from the Paris terrorist attacks in November. The attack, which left more than 130 people dead, resonated with many Americans who had traveled to Paris on vacation or had known acquaintances studying there abroad. It could have also been symbolical—the idea of a terrorist group methodically spilling blood on the streets of what books and movies have made to be the most romanticized city on the planet.
I was working the circulation desk at the library during the lockdown. Hilda, the reference librarian and I locked the doors. I turned off the “Open” sign and we spent the next few minutes entertaining the scenario: what if a shooter was on campus? Where would we hide in the library?
As we talked, a cluster of four to five students began to gather outside the library doors. They were tugging on the locked doors and had no idea about the lockdown.
The lockdown ended four minutes later at 8:39 a.m.
According to Doug Nophsker, security chief for the campus, the drill was a pre-scheduled, quarterly drill. “I would say that it was a godsend. It helped people prepare for that type of emergency,” Nophsker said. A deeply religious man, Nophsker shared an excerpt from the 127th Psalm: “Unless the Lord watches over the city, the guards stand wait in vain.” Yet in hindsight, the lockdown would be more than providential. It would stand as a sort of omen for things to come—a real mass shooting just up the 91 and 215 highways. The shooting began at 10:56 a.m. and would last for only several minutes.
II. “No one was allowed to speak”
Beneath the surface of an otherwise untouched campus, traces of the shooting’s affect can be found. Since classes continued—professors investigating aspects of early Christian history, students giving group presentations on fictional art movements, teaching assistants leading chemistry labs—the shooting’s imprint was rather internal.
A part of this interior experience would inevitably make its way toward social media. Students took to their Facebook feeds, posting links to news articles, often accompanied with the trending hashtag, “#prayforsanbernardino.” Others posted on family member’s walls, assuring that everything was okay.
For Kaitlin Palma, film and television and English major, the connection to the Inland Regional Center was more tangible. Palma’s mother had worked in the Inland center up until about four years ago. She had worked there for 20 years. Palma feared that one of the victims would be a former colleague or close friend of her mother. She was relieved to later find out that her mother’s friends at the Inland center were safe. “It’s just weird to think that one of those people could have been her,” Palma said.
"I was watching these customers freak out, and even some of my associates. Three of my coworker girls started crying and then two guys were crying as well"
Eugene Looi, a biomedical science major, also had close ties to the Inland center. Amanda Gaspard, 31, worked as an environmental health specialist for the county and was present at the Dec. 2 holiday party as Farook and Malik are said to have opened fire. After she hid under a table, one of the attackers stood over Gaspard and shot her on the arm and leg. Looi and Gaspard attend the Advent Hope Sabbath School and were both involved in their music program. “I was initially shocked and stunned, as I never had someone I knew be a victim of terrorism,” Looi said.
The shooting also generated an aura of fear, especially toward being in public spaces. “I was in a community where being outside or even inside of my house was scary. I was planning to go to the Mission Inn to see the Christmas lights. The entire time I had the ‘what if’ thought of being in a big crowd and close to where it happened,” Kayla Quimen said, a pre-nursing major.
“I definitely had trouble focusing on my labs later that day because it felt so surreal,” Jeanette Dok, a biomedical science major added. “My whole lab was busy looking up the live news on their laptops rather than actually doing the work.” Dok has close friends that go to Loma Linda University, which is three miles from the site of the attack. Four days after the shooting, Tyler mall, which is a nine-minute drive from campus, was placed in lockdown as a jewelry heist was mistaken for an active shooter situation. More than 30 police vehicles responded to the scene. After dozens of shoppers fled the mall, some screaming, dropping their shopping bags as they ran, helicopters flew overhead while police units, armed with assault rifles combed the mall walkways.
Alexis Chrispens, SALSU public relations director, was working her shift at Hollister as a brand representative during the lockdown. For more than two hours, Chrispens, her seven co-workers and 27 customers packed into the hallway leading to their supply closet. “While we were in the back, no one was allowed to speak. We were to remain silent as to not attract attention, so no one was speaking, aside from managers to associates to give us instruction,” Chrispens said. “We all thought it was a shooter and so close to the San Bernardino shootings earlier that week; we all thought it was linked … I was watching these customers freak out, and even some of my associates. Three of my coworker girls started crying and then two guys were crying as well ”
The Criterion’s arts and entertainment Editor, Daniel Larios was in Barnes and Noble during the lockdown. The bookstore is located directly next to the mall. Larios told of his reactions to the event: “I did feel a little annoyed, because the shooting and San Bernardino just happened, and I get like the whole point of my parents leaving El Salvador was to raise us somewhere safer. For a moment, I just felt those events kind of defeated the purpose.”
The Tyler mall incident was nothing more than a scare, an instance of miscommunication, or even overreaction to an otherwise smalltime robbery. But the event did work to test people’s state of mental wellbeing, post-San Bernardino shooting. It was revealed that social fear was etched into our minds, scars on our psyche. This social fear seemed to be, in a sense, closing the gap between San Bernardino and us.
III. “Driven to the fringes”
When reading the backstories of those killed, you realize just how regular each person was, and the shooting suddenly feels closer—the scars on our psyches deepen. As told by Press Enterprise reporters, Mike Wetzel, 37, who was among the 14 killed, left behind a wife and six children. Robert Adams, 40, grew up in the Inland Empire region and left behind a wife and a 20-month-old daughter. Sierra Clayborn, 27, was a comic convention and cosplay enthusiast and often made her own costumes. Tin Nguyen, 31, known for her contagious smile, was in the process of planning her wedding for 2017. Yvette Velasco, 27, had three older sisters that looked up to her, as she would offer them advice on fashion and career and life decisions.
On Jan. 4, employees of the Inland Regional Center entered the facility for the first time since the shooting. The commemorative workday was cut short and at 2 p.m., Inland center workers, along with other San Bernardino county employees filled the Citizens Business Bank Arena in Ontario. One of the guest speakers was Republican political figure Rudy Giuliani, who served as mayor of New York City during the September 11 attacks. "Come to San Bernardino and spend money and tell the terrorists 'screw you,'" Giuliani said, the audience responding in applause. "You can't beat us. We're stronger than you are.”
This unflinching language from Giuliani was meant to offer solace and foster a sense of healing, yet it reassured a divide that exists in society—an us versus them mindset. The “us” is the norm of society, as if society is one homogenous mass of cultural singularity. And the “them” is the enemy, the unfamiliar, the attackers, the terrorists, and the extremists. However, in the case of at least one of the alleged shooters, the “them” was just as much a part of the community as the other county employees that occupied the seats of the arena. The “you” and “the terrorists” in Giuliani’s speech was a product of San Bernardino and the Inland Empire.
"You look at gender attitudes, attitudes toward issues of immigration, towards issues of race and ethnicity, towards minority religions, there tends to be more incompatible views—less tolerance, less respect."
Not much is known about Malik, other than she was a Pakistani national, had a degree in Pharmacology, was enrolled in a women-only religious seminary for a year, and was here on a K-1 visa. Farook’s story is more familiar. Institutionally and socially, his narrative is as SoCal suburbanite as it gets. Born in Chicago to immigrant parents, Farook moved to the Inland Empire at a young age and grew up in Riverside, graduating from La Sierra High School in 2004. Farook went on to attend California State University, San Bernardino, graduating in 2009 and then California State University, Fullerton in 2014 for a semester. Living in Corona and then Redlands, Farook was a regular at the Islamic Center of Riverside as well as a mosque in San Bernardino. Farook and Malik married in 2013. His co-workers, the same ones he opened fire on at the Inland Regional Center, threw a baby shower for the couple who was expecting a child. Farook worked on vintage cars, enjoyed shooting hoops, eating out and lounging with family in his backyard. Six months before Farook and Malik were gunned down in a firefight with police on the day of the shooting, the two welcomed their daughter into the family. On the morning of the shooting, Farook and Malik, then armed with two AR-15 semiautomatic assault rifles, two 9-mm. semiautomatic handguns, and more than 1,400 rounds of ammunition, left their daughter in the hands of Farook’s mother.
It is worth noting that Farook and Malik’s daughter may grow up in the same community that raised Farook, the same community that many of the victims called home, the same community that La Sierra University is a part of. Once we realize that the alleged terrorist is a child of this community, what then are we left with? Are we left with paranoia and aggression toward the supposed other, or the ominous “you” in Giuliani’s speech? But what if it becomes impossible to locate this “you?” In the case of Farook, the lines begin to blur between “terrorist” and “Inland Empire local.” As we struggle for solutions, we turn to the things that will give us security. To the applause of liberals across the nation, President Obama rode the momentum of the San Bernardino shooting toward the White House’s executive action on gun control. “We know we can’t stop every act of violence, every act of evil in the world. But maybe we could try to stop one act of evil, one act of violence,” Obama said before the press, tears welling in his eyes. Moving forward toward something better, looking ahead toward a solution—many claim this is what it is to be American. Yet seldom do we look back and ask the question: what is it in our society, our community, which allowed for such violence to occur?
“When you look at somewhere like San Bernardino, or really the Inland Empire generally, it is marked by a decidedly more politically, ethnically, and culturally conservative attitude,” Eric Vega, professor of sociology said when asked to characterize the community that raised Farook. “You look at gender attitudes, attitudes toward issues of immigration, towards issues of race and ethnicity, towards minority religions, there tends to be more incompatible views—less tolerance, less respect.”
Vega, who teaches classes in La Sierra’s history, politics, and sociology department, relating to social movements, popular culture, and gender, said that when there is a lack of fellowship, community, or civility within a society, there is a greater potential for people to feel alienated or marginalized and they must look for social homes in non-traditional places.
“The idea before was that if you were an outcast and you felt marginalized, then you just kind of fell into the shadows of the recesses of that particular society, and you were really left there” Vega said. “But now, technologically, that’s not the end of the story.”
Farook did not develop radicalized views of violence and religion in a bubble. Farook, whose peers described as a devout Muslim, apparently found a home in the online and social media presence of radical terrorists who claim they killed and died for Allah and the Quran. Although Farook and Malik are indeed responsible for their actions, there were aspects of their current community that may have pushed them in this direction. Farook and Malik belonged to one of the most marginalized groups in America today. According to findings by a Gallup study, 43 percent of Americans “harbor some degree of prejudice toward Muslims.” This steady anti-Muslim sentiment can be a potent reminder of the stubborn intolerance of the American fabric.
“You have people that are driven to the fringes. And what lies on those fringes? What’s there? Are they resources? Are they resources that encourage them to understand themselves, understand people? Are they outreach efforts? Or are they recruitment efforts? Are they radicalizing efforts?” Vega said.
According to Vega, one resource that we have, is our ability to create that kind of fellowship, that kind of community inside our churches and mosques and synagogues, outside in secular ways, in our colleges, in our malls, in our everyday neighborhoods, to connect to one another. He says it’s something in the past few decades that we have gotten away from.
“We tint our windows, we gate our houses, we find more and more ways to be disconnected in those local ways. And I think that then becomes one factor for people to find other alternatives,” Vega said. For Farook and Malik, this alternative was violence, backed by ideology. Most in this Inland Empire community would find themselves on the opposite end of the ideological spectrum, distant from Farook and Malik, when it comes to violence. But look a little closer, and we realize most turn to the same means, just veiled with a different ideology.
Vega recalled an experience during the week after the Dec. 2 attack where he noticed a long line of people, streaming into a Turner’s Outdoorsman store, snaking along its exterior. He said it resembled the length of a Black Friday line. Through some questioning, Vega found out that people were in line to buy gun ammunition. Additionally, the Press Enterprise reported a dramatic increase in applications for concealed firearms permits in the Inland Empire since the Dec. 2 attack.
IV. “But how long does this last?”
These pronounced steps toward violence in the name of protection and safety and nationalism can be problematic for a community that is still trying to heal from literal bullet and shrapnel wounds. Seemingly slicing through this self-defeating response to mass violence, some offer a more peaceful alternative.
“I believe we are called, as never before, to be peacemakers in this world—and La Sierra can be helpful in this conversation as we utilize the resources of our significant diversity of backgrounds, faith, intellectual pursuits, and experience,” President Randal Wisbey told me in response to questions about the shooting. He continued, “In moments like this, it is in our La Sierra DNA to be of broad service in finding appropriate responses to difficult and challenging moments.”
However, as more than one month has passed since the day of the shooting, conversation on campus about the shooting is nearly absent.
Julia Ruybalid, an English graduate student and writing instructor whose house is walking distance from the Inland Center, was very critical of the nature of her peers’ individual responses to the attack, which mainly took place on social media. “One thing that really came into perspective for me was the difference between seeing the hashtag & posts for Paris, or any other place where a shooting has happened, versus seeing it for San Bernardino,” she told me the day after the shooting. “In a way it's infuriating seeing these stupid posts for my own community and I'm definitely guilty of making meaningless posts about tragedies.” Yet perhaps much of these halfhearted exercises of empathy have to do with the natural demands of an academic life.
“With the increased workload on students, whether that’s the amount of units they have to carry or the workload per class, I simply don’t think students are connected to anything but their studies,” Vega said. “Maybe all they have time for is a hashtag, and they have to turn back to their studies because the professor isn’t going to stop that process. It doesn’t mean that you don’t feel, sometimes it’s that we don’t give you the space to process what you are trying to wrap your head around.”
“On a human level, it is normal to identify with the loss of life and feel sympathy. But how long does this last?”
Since San Bernardino was not the first tragedy that seemed to trend upward in our online communities and eventually fall just as quickly, we are left with further questions how one ought to respond to tragedy, mass shootings, and terrorist attacks. In the case of the Paris attacks, my peers added French national flag filters to Facebook profile pictures to express empathy and solidarity. However, most of the filters were gone by Christmas. While San Bernardino was a lot closer than Paris, perhaps it still wasn’t close enough.
“On a human level, it is normal to identify with the loss of life and feel sympathy. But how long does this last?” Jordan Harris said, a senior business major and Outreach director whose Colton home is just three miles south of the Inland center. “As hard as it is to say, tragedies like this won’t change our life for more than a moment until or unless the familiar things, such as people we know, are no longer there.”
Today, chain-link fences, covered by green fence screens, form a border around the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino. Security guards monitor entrances. Surrounding the front sign are remnants of a makeshift memorial for the victims. Wrinkled sticky notes cling to the side of the sign: “#SBStrong,” and “Praying for San Bernardino and the families affected by the tragedy” are scribbled in sharpie. Wilted flower bouquets hang from the fence. A photo collage showing the 14 victims is smeared by the rain, leaving the images discolored, the ink bleeding to the edges. Each face on the fading collage represent a life lost, each holding stories and memories with husbands, wives, children, parents, siblings, and friends. But to most La Sierra University students, the faces are unfamiliar; never to be known, they are strangers that drove along the same highways, shopped at the same malls, attended the same schools, maybe even worshipped in the same churches or mosques. To us, more than one month later, these fading faces were forgotten even before they were seen.