Marine combat vet kills 12 in rampage at Calif. bar

and bathrooms, authorities and witnesses said.

“Unfortunately our young people, people at nightclubs, have learned that this may happen, and they think about that,” the sheriff said. “Fortunately it helped save a lot of lives that they fled the scene so rapidly.”

Matt Wennerstrom said he pulled people behind a pool table, and he and friends shielded women with their bodies after hearing the shots. When the gunman paused to reload, Wennerstrom said, he used a barstool to shatter a window and then helped about

30 people escape. He heard another volley of shots after they got out.

“All I wanted to do was get as many people out of there as possible,” he told KABC-TV. “I know where I’m going if I die, so I was not worried.”

The tragedy left a community that is annually listed as one of the safest cities in America reeling. Shootings of any kind are extremely rare in Thousand Oaks, a city of about

130,000 people about 40 miles (64 kilometers) from Los Angeles, just across the county line.

Scores of people showed up to donate blood for the wounded, and all morning, people looking for missing friends and relatives arrived at a community center where authorities and counselors were informing the next-of-kin of those who died. Many people walked past TV cameras with blank stares or tears in their eyes. In the parking lot, some comforted each other with hugs or a pat on the back.

MARK J. TERRILL — THE ASSOCIATED PRESS People comfort each other as they sit near the scene Thursday in Thousand Oaks where a gunman opened fire Wednesday inside a country dance bar crowded with hundreds of people on “college night.”

RICHARD VOGEL — THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Ventura County Sheriff’s deputies stand outside the house of shooting suspect David Ian Long in Newbury Park on Thursday. Authorities said the former Marine opened fire at a country music bar in Southern California on Wednesday evening.

ASSOCIATED PRESS This 2017 photo from the California Department of Motor Vehicles shows Ian David Long. Authorities said the Marine combat veteran opened fire Wednesday evening at a country music bar in Southern California, killing multiple people before apparently taking his own life.