BARGOERS HUG AFTER A GUNMAN OPENED FIRE AT A MUSIC BAR IN CALIFORNIA LATE WEDNESDAY, KILLING 12 PEOPLE, INCLUDING THE FIRST POLICEMAN TO ARRIVE.
EX-MARINE KILLS 12 AT CALIFORNIA BAR
Screaming in fear, patrons rushed for the exits, dived under tables and used bar stools to smash second-floor windows and jump to safety as gunfire reverberated through the Borderline Bar & Grill, a hangout popular with students from nearby California Lutheran University.
“I dropped to the floor,” Sarah Rose DeSon told ABC’s Good Morning America. “A friend yelled, ‘Everybody down!’ We were hiding behind tables trying to keep ourselves covered.”
The dead included 11 people inside the bar and a veteran sheriff ’s sergeant who was the first officer inside the door, Ventura County Sheriff Geoff Dean said.
“It’s a horrific scene in there,” Dean said in the parking lot. “There’s blood everywhere.”
Using a smoke bomb and a handgun, a hooded Marine combat veteran dressed all in black opened fire during college night Wednesday at the country music bar in Southern California before taking his own life, authorities said.
He has been identified as 28-year-old Ian David Long, a former machine-gunner and veteran of the war in Afghanistan who was interviewed by police at his home last spring after an episode of agitated behaviour that they were told might be posttraumatic stress disorder.
A specialist assessed Long but concluded he couldn’t be involuntarily committed for psychiatric observation.
He served in the Marines for nearly five years, according to the Pentagon. He left with the rank of corporal in March 2013, divorced soon after, and had been living with his mother in Thousand Oaks, a middle-class city near Los Angeles.
A neighbour described Long as an introvert who never caused him problems and said he was “dumbfounded” by the massacre.
Wearing a black hooded top and a balaclava over his face, Long approached the Borderline, which was holding a regular “college country night,” at 11:20 p.m. on Wednesday.
He shot the bouncer dead before moving inside, killing more staff, throwing smoke bombs, and shooting patrons at random, including people lying injured on the floor.
He then shot himself dead in the bar’s office.
Teylor Whittler, 19, said she was on the dance floor and “dived to the ground.” She said the gunman “had perfect form and looked like he knew what he was doing.”
John Hedge, who was also in the club, said: “I just started hearing these big pops. Pop, pop, pop. I hit the ground. I look up. The security guard was shot, he was down. The gunman was throwing smoke grenades all over the place.”
Long was armed with a legally owned Glock handgun, but it had a high-capacity magazine, which is illegal in California.
Sheriff’s Sgt. Ron Helus and a passing highway patrolman were the first to respond to several 911 calls. They heard gunfire and went inside. Helus, 54, was immediately shot, the sheriff said.
The highway patrolman pulled Helus out, then waited as a SWAT team and scores more officers arrived. Helus died at hospital.
“There’s no doubt that they saved lives by going in there and engaging with the suspect,” said Dean, who was set to retire on Friday. He praised the slain officer — a close friend — as a hero: “He went in there to save people and paid the ultimate price.”
All morning Thursday, people looking for missing friends and relatives arrived at a community centre where authorities and counsellors were informing the next of kin of those who died.
Many walked past TV cameras with blank stares or tears in their eyes. In the parking lot, people comforted each other.
Jason Coffman received the news that his son Cody, 22, who was about to join the army, was dead. Coffman broke down as he told reporters how his last words to his son as he went out that night were not to drink and drive and that he loved him.
“Oh, Cody, I love you, son,” Coffman sobbed.
“Sister Sister” actress Tamera Mowry-Housley and her husband said their 18-year-old niece Alaina Housely, a student at nearby Pepperdine University, was also among those killed. So was Justin Meek, a 23-yearold recent graduate of Cal Lutheran, according to the university.
It was the nation’s deadliest such attack since 17 students and teachers were killed at a Parkland, Fla., high school nine months ago. It also came less than two weeks after a gunman massacred 11 people at a synagogue in Pittsburgh.
Democratic governorelect Gavin Newsom, in his first public appearance since winning office on Tuesday, lamented the violence that has come again to California.
“It’s a gun culture,” he said. “You can’t go to a bar or nightclub? You can’t go to church or synagogue? It’s insane is the only way to describe it. The normalization, that’s the only way I can describe it. It’s become normalized.”
President Donald Trump praised police for their “great bravery” in the attack and ordered flags flown at half-staff in honour of the victims.
“IT’S A GUN CULTURE. YOU CAN’T GO TO A BAR OR NIGHTCLUB? ... IT’S BECOME NORMALIZED.