Gunfire at California biker bar kills 4, including shooter, wounds 5
Gunfire at a popular Southern California biker bar killed three people and wounded five others, and the gunman
believed to be a retired law enforcement officer was fatally shot by deputies, authorities said.
Some people stood in disbelief and others ran when a sudden flurry of gunshots broke out Wednesday evening at Cook’s Corner, in Orange County’s rural Trabuco Canyon, a witness said.
“It was like a madhouse,” Betty Fruichantie, who was in the bar, told NBC4 Los Angeles. She said she believes the shooter was the husband of a friend who was with her in the bar.
Her friend, Marie, dropped to the floor, but Fruichantie didn’t know whether she
was hit. With bullets flying past her face, Fruichantie ran and hid in a restroom with others.
“And when we came out, people were on the floor and people were like over people trying to help them, just holding their wounds,” she said.
William Mosby, of Lake Forest, told The Orange County Register outside Providence Mission Hospital that his daughter, named Marie, was taken to UCI Medical Center after being shot. He initially heard she had been killed, he told the newspaper.
“I’m extremely relieved,” Mosby said. “What I heard was the worst.”
Authorities arrived within two minutes of the first report of a shooting after 7 p.m., and the gunman was also soon dead, Orange County Sheriff ’s Sgt. Frank Gonzalez said.
Dozens of patrol cars and ambulances swarmed the bar. Three other people and the gunman were pronounced dead at the scene.
Six others were taken to the hospital, five with gunshot wounds. Two were in critical condition, according to a statement from Providence Mission Hospital, in nearby Mission Viejo.
The gunman was a retired officer with the Ventura Police Department, Cmdr. Mike Brown said the department was told by Orange County authorities, according to the Ventura County Star newspaper.