President Obama met Friday with the families of 14 people gunned down in the San Bernardino shootings.
The president and first lady Michelle Obama made the somber stop in California on the way to their annual holiday vacation in Hawaii.
“It was so moving for Michelle and myself in part because it was so representative of the country,” the president told reporters after the meetings at Indian Springs High School. “You had people from every background, every faith.”
The Obamas spoke with 14 groups of family members in the school’s library, going from table to table. The stop lasted about three hours.
“Despite the pain and the heartache that they’re feeling, they could not have been more inspiring, and more proud of their loved ones, and more insistent that something good comes out of this tragedy,” the president said.
“They’re all representative of the strength and the unity and the love in this community,” he said.
Law enforcement officials say American-born Syed Rizwan Farook, 28, and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, 29, who were later killed in a shootout with police, murdered the victims at a Dec. 2 holiday party at the San Bernardino County public health department, where Farook worked.
The couple pledged allegiance to the Islamic State terror group on Facebook. The FBI is investigating the case as terrorism. No evidence has emerged the couple coordinated with terrorists abroad or in the United States.
Enrique Marquez, Farook’s neighbor, was arrested Thursday and charged with “conspiring to provide material support to terrorists.” Marquez allegedly made a “straw purchase” of the two rifles used in the shootings.
As with other mass shootings, Obama reacted to the San Bernardino attack by urging tougher restrictions on guns. Most Republicans in Congress oppose that course.
Ryan Reyes, whose boyfriend Daniel Kaufman, 42, died in the attack, said Obama did not specifically mention gun control at the meeting.
Obama agreed on the need to quell “anti-Muslim sentiment” following the shooting and said Americans should “work together to eradicate the problems that cause tragedies like these,” Reyes told the Los Angeles Times.
