Man mourns loss of boyfriend killed in California shooting
Daniel Kaufman was among the fourteen people killed in the attack earlier this week.
A gay man has spoken of the moment he discovered his boyfriend was among those killed in a mass shooting at a social service centre in California this week.
Fourteen people were killed on Wednesday (December 2) after a man and woman stormed the Inland Regional centre in San Bernardino.
Daniel Kaufman, 42, ran a coffee shop in one of the buildings at the centre, as well as helping to train the disabled people who he worked with.
“He was his usual cheerful, chattering self,” Mr Kaufman’s boyfriend Ryan Reyes said about the last time he saw his partner alive on Wednesday morning.
The pair – who had been in a relationship for nearly three years – traded texts throughout the morning, prior to the attack.
Reyes says he received his last text from his boyfriend at around 10.37am, before his sister contacted him and told him to check the news.
For the next 22 hours, Reyes struggled to discover what happened to his boyfriend, the LA Times reports.
False leads and conflicting reports led him run between hospitals and survivor centres, desperate to find out any information about Mr Kaufman.
Reyes finally got the call from Mr Kaufman’s aunt the next day, who broke the awful news that his boyfriend had died.
“The world will suffer from having one less person like him in it,” Reyes told KABC-TV.
“He is a ray of light to so many people and so supportive, willing to give you his last dime and go without.”
“Anyone you talk to who knew Daniel will tell you that the world literally lost one of the best people who ever lived. The world is going to suffer from his loss.”
Syed Farook – an inspector at the San Bernardino County health department – and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, opened fire as a Christmas party took place inside the centre, killing 14 people and injuring a further 21.
Farook and Malik were later killed during a shootout with the police.
The FBI have said that they are currently treating the attack as a possible act of terrorism.
