Psychologist remembered for ‘passion for helping others’
Jennifer Gonzales, the psychologist who was killed along with her unborn child in the Yountville veterans facility shootings Friday, has been praised in the past few days for her devotion to helping veterans build healthy and productive post-military lives.
Much of her zeal for the cause was shaped and honed in the South Bay, where she grew up and where she later would return to help establish the Veterans Resource Center at San Jose State University.
Damian Bramlett, who once co-managed programs for veteran students at the campus, mourned Gonzales in his post on a GoFundMe page set up to support her family.
“Jenn was the type of good person this world needs, and we have all been robbed of her joy, compassion, and commitment to helping others,” Bramlett wrote. “I will miss her beyond measure.”
Gonzales, 32, was shot and killed Friday by Albert Wong, a former patient at the Napa County veterans facility where she worked for a nonprofit live-in counseling and treatment center.
Gonzales had deep roots in the South Bay, growing up in San Jose and attending St. Martin of Tours Catholic school before graduating in 2003 from Saint Francis High School in Mountain View.
Laura Rose, the school’s longtime drama director, fondly remembered Gonzales, a four-year drama student who participated in five campus productions.
“She was a gifted student with a kind and loving soul who had an incredible energy and talent,” Rose said in a statement to this news organization. “She was a friend to everyone and had a passion for helping others.”
Rose added that Gonzales’ compassion and altruism were evident early on.
“She was very active in many of our social justice and peer support programs — passions she followed throughout her professional life into her selfless work with our most vulnerable veterans in need,” she said. “You can easily see why she followed this profession because she was such a good person while she was here at Saint Francis.”
Monday, her husband, T. J. Shushereba, and father, Mikel Gonzalez, told NBC
News about how Gonzales was looking forward to her first wedding anniversary this week and the baby she was expecting in June.
“There was a lot of life ahead,” Shushereba told the network.
Gonzales was described by her father as “the Halley’s Comet of great daughters.”
“Our guts have been ripped out,” he told NBC News. “Our grief is unmeasurable. … We’re devastated.”
Gonzalez and Shushereba also voiced a mixture of “frustration” and sympathy for the shooter, 36-year- old Army veteran Wong, who had been expelled from The Pathway Home program on the Yountville Veterans Home campus in Napa County. Wong had been receiving
treatment for posttraumatic stress disorder.
The ambivalence was in part deference to Gonzales’ work on treating PTSD, a cause to which she had dedicated her professional life.
“While we deeply hate the actions of Albert Wong … I think Jennifer would want us not to hate the person,” Gonzalez told NBC News. “This man had a problem, was sick and needed help.”
The state Bureau of Security and Investigative Services on Monday followed up on assorted media reports that Wong had once been licensed to work as an armed security guard, disclosing that his licenses were canceled last fall for failure to pay required annual fees. Authorities have not said why Wong was expelled from the Pathway
program nor whether any earlier concerns about him were reported to law enforcement.
Gonzales, who was working for the San Francisco VA Health Care System, died Friday along with Pathway executive director Christine Loeber, 48, and 42-year- old clinical director Jennifer Golick.
Gonzales at tended Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles before earning her doctoral degree from Palo Alto University. She also worked for a private counseling service provider offering individual and family counseling to deputies with the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office.
In the wake of her death, Gonzales was remembered by PsychArmor founder
Marjorie Morrison as “a brilliant psychologist” who created coursework for the online nonprofit, aimed at helping college campuses successfully reintegrate veterans.
Rose, her drama teacher, finds herself mourning not only the loss of her beloved former student but the loss to communities where hope is too often in short supply.
“Her life was cut far too short,” Rose said. “Jennifer had so much more good to do in the world and love to share with her family, friends and those she served. What a senseless loss.”