San Bernardino County recovers from tragedy with ‘heavy hearts’

San Bernardino County, Calif.’s Environmental Health Services (EHS) offices reopened this week, nearly two weeks after a shooting rampage at a staff event left 13 county employees and another man dead, and 17 wounded.

While EHS operations will resume, county spokesman David Wert said it won’t necessarily be with a full complement of staff. “No one from EHS will be asked to return before they feel they are ready.”

The county has asked the Califor­nia Department of Public Health to assist with interim management and staffing, he added. That may include San Bernardino County employees who formerly worked for EHS but moved elsewhere in the organization, retired county EHS employees and EHS staff from other counties who have offered assistance.

“Our hearts are heavy during this time, but yet we must move forward,” Board of Supervisors Chairman James Ramos said at a Dec. 7 news conference. “But we are sad and angry about the events that took place, still searching for answers as to why.”

The alleged shooters, Syed Riz­wan Farook, 28, and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, 27, fled the scene. They died in a hail of gunfire from pursuing law enforcement. Farook was an environmental health services employee, and authorities have said the couple are ISIS sympathizers.

“We extend our prayers to the victims of this horrific shooting, including San Bernardino County employees and their families,” NACo President Sallie Clark said. She is also a county commissioner in El Paso County, Colo., where a similar tragedy occurred last month in Colorado Springs at a Planned Parenthood facility.

The San Bernardino shootings took place at the Inland Regional Center, which is not a county building but rather one from which county employees provide services.

Trudy Raymundo, the county’s public health director, said she and her deputy, Corwin Porter, arrived at the facility about an hour before the shootings. “When we arrived, they were upbeat; they were happy; they were learning from each other,” she said of the employees who had gathered for a day of training that included a holiday-themed lunch.

In the immediate aftermath of the tragedy, the county heightened secu­rity at its facilities — no small task.

“We have over 10 million square feet of office space within the county,” said Greg Devereaux, the county’s chief executive officer. “We’ll be assessing all of them to see if we should make or need to make physi­cal changes.”

The county has increased the number of Level 3 security personnel at buildings — those who are armed “and permitted to engage in any kind of threat.”

Security has been an ongoing focus for the county, he said. “We had already redoubled our efforts to look at physical security and the layout of our buildings and whether there were measures that we could take. In several facilities we had already begun additional physical measures that would impede someone from coming into a facility.”

The Board of Supervisors and the local United Way have established a relief fund for the victims of the Dec. 2 tragedy (See sidebar). Donations will be used to address the needs of victims and their families.

A crisis hotline has been set up that is available for any county employee to call, not just those in EHS. It’s there for victim’s families as well. Supervisor Josie Gonzalez added that all managers have been asked to look for “signs of distress” among their employees and ensure that they get the help they need.

The Board of Supervisors ac­knowledged that the events of Dec. 2 have been a blow to the entire county’s psyche, and emotional wounds may take months to heal. But Supervisor Janice Rutherford said the county won’t be cowed by the senseless violence that occurred.

“The purpose of terrorism is to make ordinary people afraid to do the ordinary things that make up their lives,” she said. To honor the slain and injured employees, “we have to fight to maintain that ordinary.”

“We stand with them to tell the terrorists, you may not have our fear; you may not have our liberty; and you may not have our love. Those are the things that make us different and distinct. That love for each other is what will give us the hope and strength — and the resilience — to embrace the ordinary again and to let all of our employees give their extraordinary public service.”