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San Bernardino shooting: memorial set for 'amazing' hero Shannon Johnson San Bernardino shooting victim recalled as 'fearless man of action' at funeral
(about 5 hours later)
The funeral of Shannon Johnson, who was posthumously praised for shielding a co-worker from gunfire during the mass shooting in San Bernardino, California, was due to take place in rural Georgia on Saturday. Those close to Shannon Johnson knew him to be fearless – whether he was moving across the country to pursue love, rescuing stray animals in the path of a wildfire or trying to shield a co-worker from gunfire during the last moments of his life.
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The family of the 45-year-old planned a funeral service at a Baptist church in the rural city of Jesup, where the health inspector’s mother and siblings live. The 45-year-old health inspector from Los Angeles received a hero’s funeral on Saturday in his home state of Georgia, 10 days after he died in a mass shooting in San Bernardino, California.
Johnson was sitting next to co-worker Denise Peraza at a holiday luncheon for San Bernardino County environmental health employees on 2 December, when a pair of attackers with assault rifles started shooting. A colleague wounded in the attack, Denise Peraza, said later that Johnson wrapped an arm tightly around her as bullets went flying and assured her: “I got you.” Those would be his last words.
Peraza said she and Johnson sought cover beneath a table and he wrapped an arm tightly around her and said: “I got you.” Inside Calvary Baptist church in the rural city of Jesup, where Johnson was born, about 2,300 miles from the auditorium in which he and 13 others died, a congressman gave his family a folded US flag while praising him as “an American hero”.
Johnson was one of 14 people killed in the attack. Peraza was shot in the back, but survived. “Shannon’s fearless. He’s always been that way,” Rob Johnson, Shannon Johnson’s older brother, told reporters before the service. “I’m sure that when he saw the young lady, he thought of his sister or his girlfriend or his former wife. That’s just the kind of guy he was. He’s a man of action.”
“I believe I am still here today because of this amazing man,” she said in a statement soon after the killings. Funerals were also held on Saturday in southern California for two other victims – Tin Nguyen, 31, and Isaac Amanios, 60.
Family and friends of two other victims were saying goodbye in southern California, where funerals for Tin Nguyen, 31, and Isaac Amanios, 60, were also planned for Saturday. Nguyen was remembered in a service conducted in Vietnamese at St Barbara’s Catholic church in Santa Ana, not far from Orange County’s Little Saigon area. Born in Vietnam, Nguyen was eight when her family left that country for the US.
Johnson’s family said he grew up in Kentucky and Georgia, where he graduated from high school in Macon. He excelled at sports and played baseball in college. Her fiance carried a large portrait of Nguyen into the church as members of the standing-room-only crowd reached out to touch it. The couple had planned to marry in 2017. The day before Nguyen was killed, she celebrated her fiance’s 32nd birthday.
Johnson spent years driving a tractor-trailer before he resettled in Los Angeles. For the past decade he had worked for the Division of Environmental Health Services in San Bernardino County, a job that required him to wake before sunrise each morning for an hour-plus commute from his Los Angeles apartment. Nguyen’s mother and grandmother, both weeping, followed the casket down the aisle to the altar. A cousin took a moment in English to thank first responders, local politicians and Nguyen’s co-workers at the San Bernardino County health department, where Nguyen was hired as an inspector after attending California State University, Fullerton.
Authorities say Syed Farook, who worked with Johnson and the other victims, and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, opened fire at the holiday gathering. They were killed in a gun battle with police. In the days after the shooting, businesses that she inspected posted online tributes, remembering Nguyen’s big heart and laughter.
Rob Johnson, Shannon Johnson’s older brother, said before the funeral on Saturday that it was no surprise his sibling tried to save a co-worker. At Johnson’s memorial service, about 200 people filed into the church where roses, lilies and carnations sent by mourners decorated the pulpit amid strands of white lights and potted poinsettias set out for the Christmas season.
“Shannon’s fearless. He’s always been that way,” Rob Johnson told reporters outside Calvary Baptist Church as family and friends gathered. The Rev Ed Bacon, a family relative, noted Johnson’s selfless final act echoed that of his father, who died while saving another man during an industrial accident at a Kentucky paper mill in 1978.
“I’m sure that when he saw the young lady, he thought of his sister or his girlfriend or his former wife … That’s just the kind of guy he was. He’s a man of action.” Johnson was just eight years old, and his father’s death affected him deeply. As a boy, Bacon said, Johnson would sometimes slip away from home and spend the night at his dad’s grave.
Rob Johnson recalled that several years ago, when wildfires ravaged southern California, his brother refused to evacuate. “He learned from his father’s death that no one has greater love than this – to give your life for your friends,” Bacon said.
“He went around the neighborhood and gathered up all the stray animals, put them in the back of his pickup and took them to the church,” then helped first responders dig a trench around it, he said. Johnson was sitting next to Peraza at a holiday luncheon for San Bernardino County environmental health employees on 2 December, when a pair of attackers with assault rifles began spraying bullets. Peraza said she and Johnson sought cover beneath a table when he tried to shield her.
That willingness to take selfless action ran in the Johnson family, he said: Shannon and Rob’s father died in 1978 while saving another man during an industrial accident at a paper mill in Kentucky. Johnson was among 14 people killed in the attack. Peraza was shot in the back but survived.
After his brother died, Rob Johnson said, their grandmother remarked: “It’s just kind of what our family does. We save people.” “I believe I am still here today because of this amazing man,” Peraza said in a statement soon after the killings.
The family planned to bury Shannon Johnson’s ashes next to his father at a cemetery in Jesup. Johnson grew up in the Macon area, where he played baseball and football in high school, Bacon said, and drove a Honda hatchback with a stereo so loud that people could hear him coming from blocks away.
When he was a young adult, his love of nature – and loud music – led Johnson to live in an isolated cabin in the Georgia woods. Then he fell in love and followed the woman to California, Johnson’s brother recalled, with no job and nowhere to live.
Johnson settled in Los Angeles. When wildfires raged in southern California years ago, his brother said, Johnson rounded up stray pets in his pickup truck and took them to a church for shelter. Then he helped first responders dig a trench to protect the church.
Though he lived far away, Johnson kept his family as close to him as possible. The walls of his Koreatown apartment were lined with framed photos, Bacon said. He also had tattoos for his mother, father and two ex-wives, who shared space on Johnson’s body with portraits of the Virgin Mary and Gone With the Wind actress Vivien Leigh.
Johnson’s brother said that as relatives gathered in Georgia to say goodbye, their grandmother, Willie Dell Johnson, helped put the tragedy of his death into perspective.
“It’s just kind of what our family does,” she said. “We save people.”