Shooting victims’ families hug, talk with Obama, first lady

SAN BERNARDINO, Calif. — The girlfriend of one of the 14 people killed in the Dec. 2 shooting in San Bernardino said President Barack Obama immediately asked her for a hug when he came to talk with her.

Obama and his wife, Michelle, met with members of each of the 14 families in the library of Indian Springs High School on Friday night before heading to Hawaii for their annual holiday getaway. A separate table was set up for each family, and the Obamas moved from one to the next, spending about 10 minutes with each victim’s relatives.

When Obama approached the table where Mandy Pifer was sitting, he said, “Words aren’t enough. How about a hug?”

Pifer’s boyfriend Shannon Johnson, 45, was killed in the attack.

“I’ve been watching you give hugs,” Pifer recalled telling him. “I need a hug.”

“It just felt like they were really present in their conversation with me,” she said. “They are sick and tired of doing these things, meeting our families.”

Obama said meeting with the families was a reminder “of what’s good in this country.”

“As difficult as this time is for them and for the entire community, they’re also representative of the strength and the unity and the love that exists in this community and in this country,” Obama said late Friday after the meetings with family members.

Pifer had told the Obamas about Johnson, how he loved life, his virtues and their future plans. She also shared with them what she knows about his last moments: His colleague Denise Peraza, who survived the attack, said he huddled with her under a table as bullets flew across the room. He held her close and told her, “I got you.”

Peraza credits Johnson with her survival, and since then the phrase “I got you” has spread across social media.

When she mentioned the phrase to the Obamas, they nodded, indicating it was a story they already knew, she said. She brought a sign stating “#IGotYou” that they all posed for a photo with it.