Marine combat veteran kills 12 in California bar shooting
Authorities said motive for the attack is under investigation
THOUSAND OAKS, CALIF. — Using a smoke bomb and a handgun, a hooded Marine combat veteran dressed all in black opened fire during college night at a country music bar in Southern California, killing 12 people and sending hundreds fleeing in terror before apparently taking his own life, authorities said Thursday.
Authorities said the motive for the attack Wednesday night was under investigation.
The killer was 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 post-traumatic stress disorder.
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.”
The bloodshed was the latest in what seems to be a never-ending
string of mass shootings that are happening with terrifying frequency across the United States.
All morning, 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 with hugs or a pat on the back.
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, Florida, high school nine
months ago. It also came less than two weeks after a gunman massacred 11 people at a synagogue in Pittsburgh.
Democratic Gov.-elect 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.
Long was armed with a Glock 21, a .45-calibre 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, Dean said.
The killer also deployed a smoke device, a law enforcement official told The Associated Press. The official was not authorized to discuss the investigation publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Authorities converged on Long’s home in Newbury Park, about five miles from the Borderline bar, in a search 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.”
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 honourably 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.
Tom Hanson, 70, who lives next door to Long and his mother, said Thursday that he called the police about six months ago when he heard “heavy-duty banging” and shouting coming from the Longs’ home.
“I was concerned because I knew he had been in the military,” he said.
Hanson said the sheriff’s deputy who arrived took his information, but he never learned more about what happened and hadn’t spoken to Long since then. He said he was “dumbfounded” by the bloodshed.
The gunman first shot a security guard standing outside, then went in and opened fire on staff members and patrons, the sheriff said.
“A friend yelled, ‘Everybody down!’ We were hiding behind tables trying to keep ourselves covered.” SARAH ROSE DESON
Survivor