San Bernardino shots still echo a decade later

Terror attack took 14 lives, changed many more and shaped politics and policing

- By Jack Dolan, Hailey Branson-Potts and Richard Winton

Photographs by CHRISTINA HOUSE Los Angeles Times THE EFFECTS of the Dec. 2, 2015, mass shooting still are felt in the San Bernardino Police Department, top; in the mind of former Chief Jarrod Burguan, middle left; and in the hearts of Renee Wetzel and her kids, who lost their father. Above, a bench on a street corner serves as a memorial in the community.

Mandy Pifer, a therapist, was with a client in Los Angeles on Dec. 2, 2015, when she received a text about a mass shooting in San Bernardino. Her fiance, Shannon Johnson, was a restaurant inspector there.

She didn't panic until, driving home, she heard on the radio that the victims were employees of the Inland Empire city's environmental health department. She grabbed her phone and dialed Shannon's number over and over, but it kept going straight to voicemail. That's when she knew, "in my bones," he was gone.

She was right. That morning the man she loved and planned to marry used his body to shield a 27-year-old coworker in what would become the deadliest terrorist attack on U.S. soil since 9/11. His last words, as he held his terrified colleague close, were, "I got you."

Johnson's death "changed the whole trajectory of my life," Pifer said through tears in a recent interview. "Everything now is before or after 'the event.'"

Tuesday marks the 10th year since restaurant inspector Syed Rizwan Farook, a U.S. citizen, and his Pakistan-born wife, Tashfeen Malik, walked into his office holiday party with military-style assault rifles and shot more than 30 people, killing 14.

The unspeakable violence, apparently inspired by jihadist propaganda online, thrust the often-overlooked and financially bankrupt city of San Bernardino into the global spotlight.