Two attackers opened fire inside a social services center in San Bernardino, California on Wednesday leaving 14 dead and many others wounded. Local authorities chose not to name victims on Wednesday so they could contact families and friends of the victims.
Syed Rizwan Farook, 28, and his wife Tashfeen Malik, 27, orchestrated the shooting, and nearly four hours later were killed in a shootout with police.
Nicholas Thalasinos, 52, was one of the 14 victims killed in the attack. Jennifer Thalasinos, his wife of nine years, said he had previously been friendly with Farook. She told the New York Times that her husband was apart of the same group of employees.
“He had worked with him,” she said. “He had talked about him. Nothing negative.”
She added that she and her husband were devout Messianic Jews and that he typically wore tzitzit, traditional Jewish tassels on his pants.
Ms Thalasinos told the Times that her husband would have had “no clue” if Farook had been radicalised.
“My husband was very outspoken about ISIS and all of these radicalized Muslims,” she said. “If he would’ve thought that somebody in his office was like that, he would’ve said something.”
Mr Thalasinos previously worked as a health inspector in Cape May County, New Jersey.
"He was a wonderful friend," Ed Beck, an old friend told Philly.com. "He worked in Cape May County as a health inspector and went out to California and was doing the same work there."
