‘It’s a horrific scene in there’
California city mourns 12 victims of combat veteran’s rampage at bar
THOUSAND OAKS, Calif. — Terrified patrons hurled barstools through windows to escape or threw their bodies protectively on top of friends as a Marine combat veteran killed 12 people at a country music bar in an attack that added Thousand Oaks to the tragic roster of American cities traumatized by mass shootings.
Dressed all in black with his hood pulled up, the gunman apparently took his own life as scores of police converged on the Borderline Bar & Grill in Southern California.
The motive for the rampage late Wednesday was under investigation.
The killer, Ian David Long, 28, was a former machine gunner and Afghanistan war veteran who was interviewed by police at his home last spring after an episode of agitated behavior that authorities were told might be posttraumatic stress disorder.
Opening fire with a handgun with an illegal, extra-capacity magazine, Long shot a security guard outside the bar and then went in and took aim at
employees and patrons, authorities said.
The dead included a veteran sheriff’s deputy who rushed in to confront the gunman, as well as a 22year-old man who planned to join the Army.
“It’s a horrific scene in there,” Ventura County Sheriff Geoff Dean said in the parking lot. “There’s blood everywhere.”
Some of the survivors of the rampage — mostly young people who had gone out for college night at the Borderline, a hangout popular with students from nearby California Lutheran University — said they were also at the outdoor country music festival in Las Vegas last year when a gunman in a high-rise hotel killed 58 people.
Many of the estimated 150 patrons at the Borderline dived under tables, ran for the exits, broke through windows or hid in the attic and bathrooms, authorities and witnesses said.
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, Mr. 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 rare in Thousand Oaks, a city of about 130,000 people 40 miles from Los Angeles.
Scores of people showed up to donate blood for the wounded, and all morning, people looking for missing friends and relatives arrived ata community center where authorities and counselors were informing the next-ofkinof those who died.
Jason Coffman received the news that his son Cody, 22, who was about to join the Army, was dead. Mr. 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,” Mr. Coffman sobbed.
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 the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh.
Democratic Gov.-elect Gavin Newsom, who won the office Tuesday, lamented the violence.
“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.”
Authorities searched Mr. Long’s home in Newbury Park, about 5 miles from the Borderline bar, for clues to what set him off.
“There’s no indication that he targeted the employees. We haven’t found any correlation,” the sheriff said. “Maybe there was a motive for this particular night, but we have no information leading to that at all.”
Mr. Long was in the Marines from 2008 to 2013, rose to the rank of corporal and served in Afghanistan in 2010-11 before he was honorably discharged, the military said. Court records show he married in 2009 and was divorced in 2013.
Authorities said he had no criminal record, but in April officers were called to his home, where deputies found him angry and acting irrationally. The sheriff said officers were told he might have PTSD because of his military service. A mental health specialist met with him and didn’t feel he needed to be hospitalized.
Mr. Long was armed with a .45-caliber pistol designed to hold 10 rounds plus one in the chamber, according to the sheriff. But it had an extended magazine — one capable of holding more ammunition — that is illegal in California, Sheriff Dean said.
Sheriff’s Sgt. Ron Helus and a passing highway patrolman arrived at the club about 11:20 p.m. in response to several 911 calls, heard gunfire and went inside, the sheriff said. Sgt. Helus was immediately shot.
The highway patrolman pulled Sgt. Helus out, then waited as a SWAT team and other officers arrived. Sgt. Helus died at a hospital.
By the time officers entered the bar 15 to 20 minutes later, they found 12 people dead, including the gunman, the sheriff said.
Sheriff Dean, who was set to retire Friday, praised the slain officer as a hero: “He went in there to save people and paid the ultimate price.”
President Donald Trump praised police for their “great bravery” in the attack and ordered flags flown at half-staff in honor of the victims.