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The tenth anniversary of the terrorist attack San Bernardino, in which Syed Farook and Tashfeen Malik murdered 14 innocent people, wounded more than 20, and left bombs to kill the first responders, passed without a statement by Kamala Harris, California’s attorney general at the time. Shortly before the December 2 anniversary, in the San Bernardino Sun, journalist Beau Yarbrough wondered, “Why did the San Bernardino Mass Shooting Happen?” The 3,332-word report was subtitled “childhood abuse, terrorism, workplace conflict and semi-automatic weapons combined in the murders of 14 people,” but there’s more to it.
“The attack was committed by a man who had grown up in an abusive home,” writes Yarbrough. Farook’s father, not named in the piece, “was an alcoholic with bipolar disorder,” and refused to take prescribed medication. The father “would throw things, including dishes, scream at the family and regularly threaten to kill himself.” By implication, the father shares the blame for his son’s killing of others. No word about the father and family of Tashfeen Malik, a Muslim born in Pakistan. And of course, other factors were involved.
Citing The Violence Project: How to Stop a Mass Shooting Epidemic, Yarbrough alludes to “mental health concerns such as depression, anxiety, and paranoia” on the part of Farook. He engaged in “workplace disputes” so the attack was “both a terrorist act and a workplace shooting.” As the author notes, some months earlier – it was actually in May, 2015 – Farook’s co-workers held a baby shower for the couple’s newborn daughter. Co-workers also said Farook was a “typical” employee who did not stand out in any way.
The notion that this was a workplace shooting recalls “soldier of Allah” Nidal Hasan’s murder of 13 soldiers at Ford Hood on November 5, 2009, which Obama branded as “workplace violence,” not terrorism or even “gun violence.” The composite character, formerly known as Barry Soetoro, later changed it to terrorism but Yarborough didn’t get the memo.
He profiles Syed Farook, as “a devout Muslim” who “fantasized about committing violence of his own, inspired by terrorist groups that claimed they fought on behalf of Islam.” The much-maligned father told reporters that Syed supported ISIS ideology and was “fixated on Israel.” He read al Qaeda magazines with instructions about building radio-controlled pipe bombs. Farook and Muslim convert Enrique Marquez talked about tossing bombs into the library at Riverside City College, or onto the 91 freeway, all designed to maximize the number of casualties.
Yarbrough cites testimony from then-FBI director James Comey that Farook and Malik were “speaking about jihad and martyrdom before they became engaged.” Marquez procured semi-automatic rifles for the pair and Farook’s mother, Rafia, shredded “attack plans” the terrorists had drawn up. Despite the careful planning and dedication to jihadism, Yarbrough concludes: ‘Childhood trauma. Online radicalization. Problems at work. None of these, alone or together, fully explains why Farook and his wife committed mass murder.” Like Kamala Harris, Yarbrough missed other possibilities.
Syed Farook and Tashfeen Malik shot dead Robert Adams, Isaac Amianos, Bennetta Betbadal, Harry Bowman, Sierra Clayborn, Juan Espinoza, Aurora Godoy, Shannon Johnson, Larry Daniel Kaufman, Damien Meins, Tin Nguyen, Nicholas Thalasinos, Yvette Velasco, and Michael Wetzel. The murder victims included blacks, Hispanics, and Asians, which opens the possibility of racism or hate crime. Victim Nicholas Thalasinos was a Jew, but Yarbrough does not raise anti-Semitism as a possible motive. Racism and Jew-hate surely played into the mass murder, but the primary motive should be obvious to all but the willfully blind.
Syed Farook and Tashfeen Malik were Islamic jihadists aiming to kill as many non-Muslims as possible. Less than a year later, on June 12, 2016, jihadist Omar Mateen gunned down 49 and wounded more than 50 in Orlando. Nine years after Orlando, 12 years after the Tsarnaev brothers bombed the Boston Marathon, and 16 years after Fort Hood, Beau Yarbrough parrots the jihad denial on display after all those attacks. When it comes to San Bernardino he’s not alone.
In 2016, one year after the attack, ABC News reported, “authorities believe the terrorist attack on Dec. 2, 2015, in San Bernardino may have been triggered by a mandatory employee training session and lunch replete with holiday decorations, including a Christmas tree, that shooter Syed Farook was forced to attend.” So partly to blame were the employees, soon to be slain by the terrorists.
Remember the San Bernardino 14, the murder victims Kamala Harris and the composite character want you to forget In 2025 moving forward, the struggle against jihad denial is the struggle of memory against forgetting.
