Site of massacre in San Bernardino, California reopens

In the offices of the Inland Regional Center, Christmas was not observed. Behind a chain-link fence and under heavy security, workers on Monday came back to their offices at the San Bernardino campus where 14 people died in December in a horrible and highly unexpected.  Massacre.

Inland Regional Center employees flashed their identification badges to security guards who ushered them into a parking lot surrounded by a mesh-wrapped fence as dozens of news reporters stood outside.

Since the attack, few employees of the center that serves autistic children and mentally disabled adults have gone to the office, other than for brief visits to gather personal belongings.

Melvin Anderson, who helps transport the center’s clients, was trying to figure out where he could turn in paperwork to get paid. The last time he did that as he does each month — was the day before the Dec. 2 terror attack at a holiday luncheon for county employees. The gathering was held in a building on the gleaming campus.

“It’s scary, really scary, but we as Americans just have to face what’s going on and try to move on,” Anderson said. “We’ve got to pull ourselves together, and we’ve got to go on.”

While many have continued to work, visiting the homes of autistic children and mentally disabled adults, they haven’t been together in the place where everything froze once law enforcement officers whisked them away. Many of the centre’s roughly 600 employees have continued to work and visited their clients’ homes over the past month. But they hadn’t been together in the place where everything froze since law enforcement officers whisked them away after the gunfire.

Syed Rizwan Farook and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, stormed into a holiday party attended by his co-workers from a San Bernardino County social services agency and opened fire on December 2, killing 14 people and wounding 22 others.

At the center, staff members have missed each other’s friendly faces and hallway chit chat, said Lavinia Johnson, the executive director. They yearn to renew a sense of stability at an institution unmoored by violence.

“Most of us are relieved to be back at work. We want to continue with the normalcy, and we miss each other very much,” she told reporters. “We want to ensure that our staff feels safe and secure as they work in their offices.”

A welcome and food were planned for returning employees. Professional counsellors were being made available for workers who wanted them.

“It may take a day or two for most people,” said Kevin Urtz, the center’s associate director. “There’s no blueprint for this kind of thing, and everybody is going to react to it differently.”

San Bernardino County officials said many county offices would close at noon on Monday to allow employees to attend a private memorial for the victims of the December attack.

A former neighbor of Farook’s, who prosecutors say supplied assault rifles to the couple, was indicted last week on charges of conspiring to provide material support to terrorists.