‘Horrific scene’: Gunman kills 12 at California bar
Carnage ends when Marine veteran fatally shoots self
THOUSAND OAKS, Calif. – A tall, hooded gunman dressed in black and covering his face with a bandanna opened fire late Wednesday during college night at a crowded country dance bar in Southern California, killing 12 people, including a sheriff’ s sergeant.
Ventura County Sheriff Geoff Dean identified the gunman, who killed himself, as Ian David Long, 28, a Marine veteran, from Newbury Park, a town inside the Thousand Oaks city limits.
The melee erupted at the Borderline Bar and Grill in Thousand Oaks, about 40 miles west of Los Angeles. Hundreds of people fled in terror, including some who used bar stools to break windows and escape.
“It’s a horrific scene in there,” said Dean, who choked up at one point while speaking to reporters in the bar’s parking lot. “There’s blood everywhere.”
The sheriff said police had “several contacts” with Long in recent years. Most notably, police said he was “angry and acting a little irrationally” when a mental health crisis team was called to his home earlier this year to investigate a disturbance. The team concluded Long did not need to be taken into custody, he said.
In addition, Long was listed as the victim in a bar skirmish three years ago, Dean said.
A Marine corporal, he served for five years – from 2008 to 2013 – including a seven-month tour in Afghanistan, according to Marine Corps records. Long earned several awards, including a Combat Action Ribbon and a Marine Corps Good Conduct Medal.
The suspect was armed with a legally purchased Glock 21 .45-caliber handgun designed to hold 10 rounds plus one in the chamber. But the sheriff says the gun had an extended magazine that is illegal in California.
After spraying bullets for almost three minutes, the gunman went into an office near the front of the bar where he was found dead of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound.
“It appears he walked up to the scene, shot the security guard who was standing outside, then stepped inside,” Dean said. “It appears that he turned to the right and shot several of the other security guards and employees, and began opening fire inside the nightclub.”
Eighteen people transported themselves to local hospitals, and two were taken by ambulance, according to the Ventura County Sheriff’s Office.
Sheriff ’s Sgt. Ron Helus, who was shot after he entered the building, died at a hospital early Thursday.
Helus and a passing highway patrolman were responding to several 911 calls when they arrived at the bar around 11:20 p.m., the sheriff said. They heard gunfire and went inside.
Helus was immediately hit with multiple gunshots, Dean said. The highway patrolman pulled Helus out and waited as a SWAT team and scores more officers arrived.
The sheriff said there were “multiple other victims” with different levels of injury. He called the shooting a “tragic, tragic situation.”
Jason Coffman received confirmation 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 were not to drink and drive and that he loved him.
“Oh, Cody, I love you, son,” Coffman sobbed. Matt Wennerstrom, 20, said the attacker, armed with a handgun, first opened fire on employees working the front desk.
“I grabbed as many people as I could and pulled them down underneath the pool table we were close to until he ran out of bullets for that magazine and had to reload,” he said.
Wennerstrom, a regular customer at the bar, said he and other patrons used bar stools to break open a window to help people escape. “We were shuttling as many people out as we could,” he said.