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[h=4]Names of San Bernardino dead begin to emerge[/h]The dead, mostly colleagues of gunman Syed R. Farook, are remembered by their loved ones.
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Jack Prewett talks about his friend Daniel Kaufman who was killed in the mass shooting at Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino, California. Video by desertsun.com The Desert Sun
The family of shooting victim Tin Nguyen leave the county site for victims of yesterday's shooting in San Bernardino.(Photo: Richard Lui/The Desert Sun/USA TODAY Network)
Families and friends have begun identifying the 14 people killed in Wednesday's mass shooting at the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino. Here are some of their stories:
Tin Nguyen
Nguyen, a Vietnamese-born woman who was planning to be married in 2017, dropped by the Wednesday-morning holiday meeting<span style="color: Red;">*</span>at the Inland Regional Center, her cousin Calvin Nguyen told the USA TODAY Network.
Neither Calvin nor the rest of Nguyen's cousins were concerned by 10:30 p.m. Wednesday, when the relatives were texting each other about the family's Christmas season plans.
It was around 11 p.m. when Calvin's family heard news that Nguyen, 31, was in the same facility they had seen on the news.
"Her mom tried to call, and all people tried to call, but no answer," Calvin said.
USA TODAY
San Bernardino shooting: What we know now
By midnight they still hadn't received word from Nguyen, of Santa Ana<span style="color: Red;">*</span>in Orange County, but had reached a tragic conclusion.
"We said, if she survived, she would have called us back," Calvin said Thursday.
Nguyen, like gunman Syed R. Farook, was a food inspector with the San Bernardino County Health Department, her uncle Phu Nguyen told the Newsday newspaper.
On Thursday afternoon, Calvin and about 10 other family members huddled together as they approached the grief counseling center set up by the county in nearby Highland. An older woman in the group stopped just short of the curb leading into the building, threw her head back and screamed. Several other family members held her as they escorted her into the small banquet hall.
USA TODAY
Republicans say no to new gun control legislation after San Bernardino
The screams could still be heard from the parking lot as the family faced the county's grief counselors inside. San Bernardino Sheriff's deputies guarding the facility closed the doors.
"She was very intelligent, a good girl, takes care of Mom and family," Calvin told the USA TODAY Network,<span style="color: Red;">*</span>as the family emerged from the facility in each other's arms about 20 minutes later.
"We very sad that we lose her," he said. "Pray for us."
Daniel<span style="color: Red;">*</span>Kaufman
Kaufman, who was serving coffee at the holiday event, was one of the victims of the shooting, his friend Jack Prewett told the USA TODAY Network.
Prewett had read on Facebook that Kaufman, 42, had been at the gathering<span style="color: Red;">*</span>when the shooting occurred, but had heard that his friend of 15 years was only injured in the attack.
"Initially we heard that he had been shot in the arm and was in surgery and everything was fine, and then we got that, no, that was a miscommunication."
Prewett came to the grief counseling center set up by San Bernardino County on Thursday morning to see for himself if the rumors of Kaufman's death were true. Police confirmed the sad news.
"I was dreading it," he said.
Jennifer and Nicholas Thalasinos met online.<span style="color: Red;">*</span>(Photo: Family photo)
Nicholas Thalasinos
Marie Medina, a 20-year resident of a quiet neighborhood in Colton, Calif.,<span style="color: Red;">*</span>woke up Thursday morning feeling a sense of relief.
“They caught the guys. It’s over,” she thought at first.
But when she looked out the shades of her window, she knew she was wrong.<span style="color: Red;">*</span>“Instead it came right into our front yard.”
News vans crowded into the neighborhood, and<span style="color: Red;">*</span>Medina soon realized the photo of a victim she saw on television the night before was a neighbor,<span style="color: Red;">*</span>Nicholas Thalasinos, who lived across the street.
The 52-year-old, an environmental health specialist for the county<span style="color: Red;">*</span>was a co-worker of suspected gunman Syed Rizwan Farook.
According to those who knew him, Thalasinos<span style="color: Red;">*</span>was outspoken about political and religious topics. But he was always known to be “wonderful and compassionate."
Nicholas lived in a<span style="color: Red;">*</span>baby blue stucco house with his wife, Jennifer Thompson-Thalasinos, whom he met 14 years ago. Family friend, Sharon Humphrey, 55, said the two met online, on opposite sides of the country. Jennifer lived in Colton and Nicholas lived in New Jersey.
A GoFundMe page set up to help Jennifer with funeral costs<span style="color: Red;">*</span>describes their relationship as “a truly romantic, fairy tale love.” According to the page, the two bonded over their love for science fiction and fantasy, sharing an interest in Beauty and the Beast.
Humphrey said that Nicholas was a great family man who<span style="color: Red;">*</span>loved Jennifer and helped take care of her parents.
“It’s an unbelievable tragedy,” she said as she stood in front of their yard, talking with Medina. “You never expect this to happen to someone you know.”
Thalasinos, a former New Jersey resident, was an employee at the department for about 12 years and had worked as an inspector alongside Farook, Thalasinos'wife,<span style="color: Red;">*</span>Jennifer Thalasinos, told KABC.
His widow, a second-grade teacher for Colton Joint Unified School District, told KABC that she met her husband online. He was living in New Jersey and moved out to San Bernardino to be with her.
"My husband, Nicholas Thalasinos, was killed in the shooting," she wrote in a Facebook post.
Also on social media, Thalasinos wrote that he received threats in the days leading up to the attack.
In a Facebook post on Tuesday, he said he received a message full of threats, including one stating he "will die."
Fellow San Bernadino County worker Vincent Armijo, a leader with Shiloh Messianic Congregation church in Crestline where Thalasinos and his wife were members, told the USA TODAY Network that he got a call Wednesday afternoon saying his friend had not been accounted for and asking him to pray.
Profile Pictures - Jennifer Thalasinos | Facebook
"He was just one of those guys who wanted more and more and more from the church," Armijo said.
Condolences to Thalasinos' friends and family filled his Facebook page. Thalasinos' profile there and on Twitter, where he used the handle @LeastServant, indicated he used the platforms to share his conservative and pro-Israel views.
Some online speculated Thursday that those viewpoints may have made Thalasinos a target.
"Nick was very courageous and spoke the truth," one person wrote on his Facebook page. "It is my honest belief that Nicholas was murdered because of his alliance with Israel and Jewish people."
Armijo said Thalasinos was conservative and eager to share his opinions, but never aggressively so.
"I have some people in the congregation who you would know like that, but that was not the way I knew Nick," he said. "Nick had a pleasant manner about him, always said hello."
Michael Wetzel
Wetzel, also a colleague of gunman Farook, was identified Thursday by friends as one of the Inland Regional Center victims, according to the local San Bernadino Sun newspaper.
Wetzel's death was confirmed in a post on online fundraising site launched Thursday for his wife and six children. As of Thursday at noon, $51,478 of a $75,000 goal has been raised on the page, the paper reported.
In San Bernardino County Department of Public Health documents, according to the Sun, he is listed as a supervising environmental health specialist.
The family lives in Lake Arrowhead, a rural town north of San Bernadino, a spokeswoman for the Church of the Woods told the paper.
USA TODAY
Shooters may have had links to radical ideology
In the fundraiser posting, organizer Celia Behar wrote that Wetzel's wife, Renee, sent her a message on Wednesday. "Please pray. My husband was in a meeting and a shooter came in. There are multiple people dead/shot. I can't get a hold of him."
Only eight hours after that message was sent, "Renee learned that her husband Michael Raymond Wetzel had been killed," according to Behar.
Damian Meins
In an email sent to employees, Juan C. Perez, director of Riverside County Transportation & Land Management Agency, called Damian Meins a "bright light" that had been "extinguished from our world in a most tragic way," the Los Angeles Times reported.
In the email, Perez wrote that Meins had spent 28 years working for Riverside County and had recently returned to a position with the environmental health department after retiring in 2010. Meins, he said, also had been a physical education teacher at St. Catherine's School in nearby Riverside, where he played Santa.
"I will always remember Damian as a caring, jovial man with a warm smile and a hearty laugh," Perez wrote.
Isaac<span style="color: Red;">*</span>Gebreslassie
A woman who answered a USA TODAY Network phone call Thursday at<span style="color: Red;">*</span>Isaac<span style="color: Red;">*</span>Gebreslassie's<span style="color: Red;">*</span>home said he had “passed away.” She would not give her name. People were crying in the background.
A witness, Chris Nwadike, told the USA TODAY Network on Wednesday evening<span style="color: Red;">*</span>that Gebreslassie, 60,<span style="color: Red;">*</span>had been sitting next to Farook<span style="color: Red;">*</span>at the health department meeting before he<span style="color: Red;">*</span>left to fetch his wife and begin the rampage.
Gebreslassie is listed in payroll records as a supervising environmental health specialist in the same department where Farook worked.
On Wednesday night, Gebreslassie's wife,<span style="color: Red;">*</span>Hiwet, told The Wall Street Journal that<span style="color: Red;">*</span>she was unable to reach her husband by phone and that she and family members had spent all night driving around to local hospitals searching<span style="color: Red;">*</span>for him.
“I’ve tried calling, texting,” she told the paper. “Nothing.”
Later Thursday, Gebreslassie’s brother told the Journal that the family had been notified that<span style="color: Red;">*</span>Gebreslassie was one of the 14 people killed.
Anna Rumer, Barrett Newkirk and Colin Atagi<span style="color: Red;">*</span>of The (Palm Springs) Desert Sun,<span style="color: Red;">*</span>Megan Cassidy and Amy B Wang of the Arizona Republic, and Brad Heath of USA TODAY<span style="color: Red;">*</span>contributed to this story. All are staffers for the USA TODAY Network.
MASS SHOOTING IN SAN BERNARDINO, CALIF.Resident makes memorial for San Bernardino victims and his father | 01:14Manny Guzman of Redlands, Calif. started a memorial near the site of the San Bernardino mass shooting to honor those who were killed and his father who was shot and killed 20 years ago. Robert Hanashiro, USA TODAY
MASS SHOOTING IN SAN BERNARDINO, CALIF.12 mass shootings, 12 Presidential speeches | 04:26During President Obama's time in office he has found himself in the position to have to address the Nation following a mass shooting. The latest in San Bernardino, California has him hoping the nation does not think of these incidents as routine. USA TODAY
MASS SHOOTING IN SAN BERNARDINO, CALIF.San Bernardino shooting victim 'was life itself' | 03:03Jack Prewett talks about his friend Daniel Kaufman who was killed in the mass shooting at Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino, California. Video by desertsun.com The Desert Sun
MASS SHOOTING IN SAN BERNARDINO, CALIF.Women are not often the headline in mass killing stories | 01:23The mass shooting in San Bernardino, California has an unusual detail, one suspect is a woman. Women are rarely the headline in these stories, however, we take a look at a few of the cases where they were. USA TODAY
MASS SHOOTING IN SAN BERNARDINO, CALIF.How to cope with emotional toll caused by mass shooting | 01:56With news of shootings in Colorado and California, KUSA found ways for the public to find help coping with the tragedies. VPC
MASS SHOOTING IN SAN BERNARDINO, CALIF.Mother of Shooting Survivor: I Feel Blessed | 01:21The mother of a woman who was shot during the shooting attack in San Bernardino said she is blessed that her daughter survived. (Dec. 3) AP
MASS SHOOTING IN SAN BERNARDINO, CALIF.What we know about the San Bernardino shooting suspects | 01:17Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik are suspected of killing 14 people during a shooting in San Bernardino, California. Here is what we know about the two suspects. USA TODAY
MASS SHOOTING IN SAN BERNARDINO, CALIF.Friend of potential San Bernardino victim: 'Praying she's OK' | 01:00David Royster says he's trying to get in contact with a friend who was at the holiday party at Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino, California, where 14 people were killed in a mass shooting. Video by azcentral.com
MASS SHOOTING IN SAN BERNARDINO, CALIF.Attackers had more than 1,600 bullets with them | 02:05Police say the attackers who killed 14 people at a banquet in Southern California had more than 1,600 bullets with them when they were gunned down in their SUV. (Dec. 3) AP
MASS SHOOTING IN SAN BERNARDINO, CALIF.Raw: Families notified loved ones died in San Bernardino shooting | 00:53Family members leave the building after being told their loved ones were killed in a mass shooting in San Bernardino. 14 people were killed. Police say Syed Farook and Tashreen Malik opened fire at the Inland Regional Center. azcentral.com
MASS SHOOTING IN SAN BERNARDINO, CALIF.Witnesses of the San Bernardino shooting tell their stories | 00:55Survivors of the San Bernardino shooting and their loved ones describe what happened during the horrific incident.
Video provided by Newsy Newslook
MASS SHOOTING IN SAN BERNARDINO, CALIF.Obama: Terrorism 'possible' in Calif. shooting | 02:56President Barack Obama says it's possible the mass shooting in California was related to terrorism, but that authorities still don't know. He says it's possible it was workplace-related or that there were mixed motives. (Dec. 3) AP
MASS SHOOTING IN SAN BERNARDINO, CALIF.Raw: California Suspects' Bullet-Riddled SUV | 01:01Thursday morning, aerial video showed the SUV occupied by the couple suspected of killing 14 people and wounding many more in a shooting in San Bernardino, California and police evidence markers around the scene. (Dec. 3) AP
MASS SHOOTING IN SAN BERNARDINO, CALIF.Somber scene near California shooting | 01:11Jefferson Graham reports from San Bernardino, California, where survivors and family members at Wednesday's mass shooting have been bussed to a local community center. Sean Fujiwara
MASS SHOOTING IN SAN BERNARDINO, CALIF.San Bernardino Police Chief names shooting suspects | 02:35San Bernardino Police Chief Jarrod Burguan says the two suspects in the Wednesday morning shooting are named Syed Farook and Tashfeen Malik. Both died in a shootout with police. (Dec. 3) AP
MASS SHOOTING IN SAN BERNARDINO, CALIF.Shooting survivors reunited with family | 01:26Survivors of the mass shooting at the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino, Calif. were reunited with family after being interviewed by authorities. Robert Hanashiro, USA TODAY
MASS SHOOTING IN SAN BERNARDINO, CALIF.Speaker leads a moment of silence before lighting tree | 00:47Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan, asked for a moment of silence for the victims of the San Bernardino shooting, during the Capitol Christmas Tree lighting ceremony Wednesday evening in Washington. Daniel Farber-Ball / USA TODAY
MASS SHOOTING IN SAN BERNARDINO, CALIF.Police chief names shooting suspects | 02:33San Bernardino Police Chief Jarrod Burguan says the two suspects in the Wednesday morning shooting are named Syed Farook and Tashfeen Malik. Both died in a shootout with police. (Dec. 3) AP
MASS SHOOTING IN SAN BERNARDINO, CALIF.Bystanders react to California shooting | 00:34USA TODAY talks to bystanders on the scene of the San Bernardino mass shooting. Jefferson Graham reports. Sean Fujiwara, USA TODAY
MASS SHOOTING IN SAN BERNARDINO, CALIF.Worry, confusion for families after Calif. shooting | 01:08As many as three gunmen believed to be wearing military-style gear opened fire Wednesday at a Southern California social services center, killing at least 14 people and wounding more than a dozen others, authorities said. (Dec. 2) AP
MASS SHOOTING IN SAN BERNARDINO, CALIF.Emotional dad: Daughter 'hiding' from shooter | 01:23Relatives describe hearing from loved ones from inside a social services facility in San Bernardino, California where police are responding to an active shooter. (Dec. 2) AP
MASS SHOOTING IN SAN BERNARDINO, CALIF.Search for motive in San Bernardino shooting | 01:38Authorities are searching for a motive for Wednesday's shooting in Southern California. Police say the mass shooting could have been terrorism, or the result of a workplace dispute. (Dec. 3) AP
MASS SHOOTING IN SAN BERNARDINO, CALIF.Raw: Victims treated in Calif. shooting incident | 01:33Aerial video shows victims being treated and taken to ambulances following reports of an active shooter situation in San Bernardino, California. (Dec. 2) AP
MASS SHOOTING IN SAN BERNARDINO, CALIF.Police chief: 14 dead in Calif. shooting | 01:45The San Bernardino, California chief of police says at least 14 people were killed and at least 14 more were injured in a mass shooting at a social services center. Police were still searching for as many as three gunman. (Dec. 2) AP
MASS SHOOTING IN SAN BERNARDINO, CALIF.Obama: 'We have a pattern now of mass shootings' | 01:52President Barack Obama is calling Wednesday's mass shooting in Southern California part of a pattern of shootings in the U.S. that "has no parallel anywhere else in the world." (Dec. 2) AP
MASS SHOOTING IN SAN BERNARDINO, CALIF.'Moment of Silence' at DC Tree Lighting | 00:49The mass shooting in California has intruded on a normally festive event in Washington - the annual lighting of the Capitol Christmas Tree. (Dec. 2) AP
MASS SHOOTING IN SAN BERNARDINO, CALIF.San Bernardino Police search for suspect after mass shooting | 00:33Officers in San Bernardino, Calif., responded to an active shooter situation. Multiple people are dead and injured.
Video provided by Newsy Newslook
MASS SHOOTING IN SAN BERNARDINO, CALIF.Police: 2 Suspects Down, 1 Other Detained | 01:38Police said a man and a woman suspected of carrying out a deadly shooting in San Bernardino, California were killed in a shootout with police. A third possible suspect was being detained. A motive for the shooting has not been reported. (Dec. 2) AP
MASS SHOOTING IN SAN BERNARDINO, CALIF.Mass shooting reported at California Social Services facility | 00:41Police in the Southern California city of San Bernardino were responding Wednesday to reports of a mass shooting at a social services facility. USA TODAY
MASS SHOOTING IN SAN BERNARDINO, CALIF.Police respond to active shooter in Calif. | 00:56Police in San Bernardino, Calif. were responding to reports of an active shooter at a social services facility. (Dec. 2) AP
MASS SHOOTING IN SAN BERNARDINO, CALIF.San Bernardino County Sheriff confirms active shooter | 01:40Bloomberg's Mark Crumpton reports that there's an active shooter near Orange Show Rd. and Waterman Ave., the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department said in a tweet, citing the San Bernardino Police Department. Bloomberg
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