A photo taken by one of the survivors of the San Bernardino terror attack this past Wednesday shows a happy and festive atmosphere minutes before Syed Rizwan Farook and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, embarked on their killing spree.
“She sent us a picture and a text that she was shot,” Julie Swann Paez’s son Nick told CBS Los Angeles. In the picture, Julie was receiving an award for excellence in the conference room at the Inland Regional Center where the holiday party was being held.
Julie will likely remain hospitalized for the next two weeks before heading to three months of rehabilitation for the gunshot wounds she received to her pelvis. She will need to relearn how to walk. Her husband, two sons and 11-year-old daughter have been along her side throughout the process.
In his on-camera interview with CBS, Nick noted that his mother had no inkling that Farook was plotting a massacre, noting that she saw him as an ordinary man. Farook worked for the county for five years.
On Monday night, a vigil was held at Cal State University San Bernardino to honor the lives of those slain in last week’s attacks. During the vigil, members of the interfaith community shared sentiments at a podium where words of inspiration were provided and professors mulled over what went wrong to cause CSUSB alum Farook to become radicalized.
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