HOOVER, Ala. — Anita Jefferson didn’t know much about San Bernardino, Calif., before the terror attack there. The West Coast town is nearly the exact size as her hometown of Birmingham and hardly a high-profile target like New York or Paris.
Now, she finds herself worried about the possibility of an attack at a location like the suburban shopping mall where Jefferson works at a food kiosk for the Christmas shopping season — a place that’s public but, unlike stadiums and other venues, has relatively lax security.
“You’d think they’d go to a larger place, but a smaller place may be easier,” said Jefferson, 62.
If there could be a terror attack at a social services center in San Bernardino, why not suburban Alabama, or downtown Louisville, Ky.?
The bloody attack made it all too obvious for some Americans that big cities with marquee names aren’t the only potential targets.
“I can honestly say I don’t feel as safe,” said Tim Harrington, 50, of Jacksonville, Fla., while touring a museum in Louisville.
There is plenty of security at the suburban Birmingham mall — “and they’re awesome,” said Lindsay Alexander, 18, who works there and feels safe. But her comfort level isn’t what it was a few days ago.
“It could happen here,” said Alexander. “They could just pick something random.”
Psychology professor Marjorie Sanfilippo doesn’t believe people will change their behavior because of the San Bernardino massacre.
“People are very resilient and tend to get back to their regular lives,” said Sanfilippo, who teaches at Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, Fla.
But, she cautioned, that could change if there were more “random attacks” in public places, such as coffee shops.
“That’s when I think we would see fear,” said Sanfilippo.
Residents in Lincoln, Neb. — which didn’t experience its first homicide of 2015 until last month — said the attacks hadn’t affected their sense of security.
“If they’re looking for a mass killing, they’re going to go to places with more people,” said Nate Jurgensmeier, a 19-year-old sophomore at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln.
