Center leader expects all staff back at work

Department of Public Health employee Syed Farook and his wife Tashfeen Malik opened fire last month in the conference room, killing 14 people and injuring 22 others.

Workers will return to the Inland Regional Center for the first time since the December 2 terror attack.

Many have continued to work, visiting the homes of autistic children and mentally disabled adults.

The shooting occurred during a holiday party at the IRC’s main campus on South Waterman Avenue. The couple, who were killed afterward in a shootout with police, were believed to have had ties to the Islamic State group. Some operations were moved off-site and about 350 iPads will be distributed to employees, allowing them remote access to email, voice mail, records and client information.

The conference building did not reopen Monday, and it’s unclear when it might.

More than a month after the massacre, the center’s complex reopened Monday, and employees walked back to their desks and offices amid increased security, as a crowd of reporters looked on.

The fence originally was erected to keep people off the campus during the investigation of the attacks, but now remains a semi-permanent fixture meant to make employees feel safe.

They showed badges and passed through a guarded security gate in the chain-link fence that’s still wrapped with privacy mesh and circles the Inland Regional Center like a green shroud.

With a staff of 600, the Inland Regional Center serves more than 30,000 developmentally disabled people from throughout its region in Southern California, officials told the Sun.

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“They work in teams, and as you can imagine, they’re all looking forward to getting back together with their team”, she said.

“We can talk through it and we’re here to support each other”.

Inland Regional Center executive director, Lavinia Johnson, right, and associate executive director, Kevin Urtz, left, take questions from the media before the reopening of the social service center in the San Bernardino, Calif., on Monday, Jan. 4, 2016.