San Bernardino Shooting Victim Reportedly Received Death Threat Before He Was Killed
SAN BERNARDINO (CBSLA.com) — Before he was killed in the San Bernardino mass shooting, a Colton resident indicated via Facebook that he had received a death threat.
Nicholas Thalasinos had posted a message on his Facebook account on Tuesday night indicating that a Facebook user who lives in Kharkov, Ukraine sent him a message that read in part:
"… you will die and never see Israel as country believe me never."
The 52-year-old Thalasinos worked as a county restaurant inspector and regularly discussed politics and religion, Kuuleme Stephens, a friend, told the Associated Press.
Thalasinos' wife, Jennifer Thalasinos, told CBS Los Angeles that her husband was very vocal on social media about his religious beliefs.
"Very outspoken. He's conservative. Very outspoken about that on Facebook," she said.
In a Sept. 10 post, a graphic reads: "You can stick your Million Muslim March up your [expletive]."
COMPLETE COVERAGE: San Bernardino Shooting
Thalasinos, according to CBS Philly, was a Messianic Jew, who regularly posted about Israel and politics and compared Muslims to Jews. CNN reported that Thalasinos referred to himself as a Zionist.
There is no indication that the post Thalasinos had received via Facebook was at all connected to the mass shooting.
Thalasinos was among fourteen people killed Wednesday.
His wife said her husband never mentioned any friction between him and Syed Farook, one of the two deceased suspects in the massacre.
"He had never anything about that. It's like OK, he was Muslim. My husband was Messianic, but I don't think they ever had any big disagreements or anything like that because he would have talked about that."
His wife said he started following the Messianic faith in 2013.
"I feel that the Lord has his arms around me and that's what's keeping me going," she said, adding that she had a "gut feeling" her husband was gone Wednesday after he didn't return her text messages.
She says she was told her husband was one of the individuals tasked with training Farook as a health inspector.