A survivor of San Bernardino massacre says she doesn't feel an overwhelming sense of anger because she spends little time thinking about the co-worker who shot her and massacred her colleagues.
"I don't really think about him ... I just don't try to think about him," said Jennifer Stevens of Syed Farook, who, with his wife Tashfeen Malik, gunned down county employees at a social services facility on Dec. 2.
"I don't think I was ever really angry," Stevens said.
But she is grieving.
"These were people I worked with, people I was very familiar with, I talked with every day ... They're not there anymore or, you know, they're not doing as well and it just breaks my heart," Stevens said.
Farook was one such person that Stevens was used to seeing at work, but she said the 28-year-old was "very quiet" and "wouldn't really make eye contact."
Investigators have said that the married attackers were radicalized, and Malik had pledged allegiance to ISIS before the attack. Stevens said she couldn't understand why the mental health facility was targeted because "we don't really get on anyone's nerves. No one's out to get us."
The idea of an attack at Inland Regional Center was so unfathomable to Stevens that when Farook stormed into the room where employees were eating and chatting during a holiday celebration, she thought the commotion was a drill.
"It was a masked man — that's what I know for sure — and he had a big gun," Stevens said. "I saw my co-worker drop to the ground, go under the table and I was like that's a good idea — even if it's just a drill."
When Stevens realized the violent scene wasn't a drill and first responders told those who were injured to stay put, she tried to leave because she didn't know how hurt she was, and she feared the assailants were going to come back.
But once Stevens did get outside, she became aware of how hurt she really was when EMTs started tagging people by the severity of their injuries.
"There was like four or five different categories, and I was labeled the one before morgue," she said.
Stevens had been shot straight through her abdomen and in her arm, but she said her recovery is going smoothly. She considers herself "lucky."
"I am very fortunate, you know, where I was shot ... compared to other victims," Stevens said. "I wish that more people were more fortunate."
