This article is from the source 'nytimes' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.

You can find the current article at its original source at https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/08/us/shooting-california-thousand-oaks.html

The article has changed 30 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.

Version 21 Version 22
California Shooting Leaves 12 Dead at Thousand Oaks Bar California Shooting Kills 12 at Country Music Bar, a Year After Las Vegas
(about 3 hours later)
THOUSAND OAKS, Calif. — A Marine Corps veteran who had served in Afghanistan fatally shot at least 12 people Wednesday night when he stormed a crowded country and western dance hall in Thousand Oaks, Calif., the authorities said. THOUSAND OAKS, Calif. — Country music was blaring and beer was flowing. The Lakers game was on the television, and if revelers weren’t line dancing they were playing pool. Then all of a sudden, into “College Country Night!” at the Borderline Bar & Grill stepped a man with a gun.
The Ventura County sheriff, Geoff Dean, said that the gunman, Ian David Long of nearby Newbury Park, Calif., apparently took his own life after being confronted by officers responding to the Wednesday night attack. One officer, Sgt. Ron Helus, was killed when he entered the building to help. The gunman used a .45-caliber handgun that he purchased legally. It had been outfitted with an extended magazine. Wearing dark clothing and a dark baseball cap, he set off smoke bombs to create confusion. He shot a security guard at the entrance and then opened fire into the crowd. Patrons dropped to the ground, dashed under tables, hid in the bathroom and ran for exits, stepping over bodies sprawled across the floor.
The shooting came just over a year after 58 people were killed at a country music festival in Las Vegas when a gunman opened fire from a high-rise hotel room. There was an eerie parallel between the two shootings as some of the same people who emerged from the bar, the Borderline Bar & Grill, described having survived the shooting on the Las Vegas Strip. “I remember looking back at one point to make sure he wasn’t behind me,” said Sarah DeSon, a 19-year-old college student.
Deputies had some interaction with Mr. Long the last few years, the sheriff said, including a reported disturbance at his home in April that prompted mental health specialists to talk to him. The health specialists, who talked to Mr. Long about his military service after suspecting that he might be suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, determined that he was not an immediate danger to himself or others and that he could not be involuntarily taken to a mental hospital. And as they raced for safety, many of them thought, not again.
Witnesses recalled a chaotic scene at the bar, which was filled with hundreds of people, many of them college students: A gunman opening fire, first at a security guard, as patrons dropped to the dance floor, hid under tables and broke windows to escape. Just last year, they had fled the same chaos — gunshots, bodies falling — in Las Vegas, at a country music festival where 58 people were killed in the worst mass shooting in modern American history. The Borderline, a popular hangout for country music fans, had become a place of solace for dozens of survivors of the Vegas massacre to come together for music, for healing and for remembering — “to celebrate life,” in the words of one.
Many survivors said they were alive because of the actions of complete strangers. Sheriff Dean said that at least six off-duty officers were inside when the gunman opened fire. A parent told Sheriff Dean that “they stood in front of my daughter” and protected her. Witnesses also told local news media about patrons in the back of the bar who broke out a window and helped a number of people escape. And now, at least some of them, belong to a group that seems uniquely American: survivors of two mass shootings.
The number of people wounded in the shooting on Wednesday was unclear, but the Ventura County Sheriff’s Office said about 22 people had been taken to various hospitals. “This is the second time in about a year and a month that this has happened,” Nicholas Champion, a fitness trainer from Southern California who posted a group photo on Facebook of Vegas survivors gathering at the Borderline in April, said in a television interview. “I was at the Las Vegas Route 91 mass shooting as well as probably 50 or 60 others who were in the building at the same time as me tonight.”
The sheriff, his voice cracking, recalled Sergeant Helus, the only victim identified so far by law enforcement. When a gunman opened fire at the Route 91 Festival in Las Vegas last year, Telemachus Orfanos somehow survived.
“He died a hero because he went, he went in to save lives, to save other people’s lives,” Sheriff Dean said. On Wednesday night, though, he didn’t.
[California Shooting victims: Sgt. Ron Helus ‘went in to save lives’.] “He was killed last night at Borderline,” his mother, Susan Orfanos, said, speaking rapidly into the telephone. “He made it through Las Vegas, he came home. And he didn’t come home last night, and the two words I want you to write are: Gun control. Right now — so that no one else goes through this. Can you do that? Can you do that for me? Gun control.”
Country music was playing in the dimly lit bar when people first heard gunshots some time before midnight. Some said they had initially mistaken the sounds for firecrackers. Ms. Orfanos then hung up the telephone.
Sheriff Dean said Mr. Long first shot a security officer outside the club and then walked inside, turned to the right and shot “other security and employees” before starting to fire on patrons in the main part of the club. The authorities said the gunman, Ian D. Long, 28, of Newbury Park, Calif., was found dead at the scene after killing 12 people including a sheriff’s deputy, and being confronted by officers who had stormed the bar. Investigators said there was no clear motive. Mr. Long, a Marine Corps veteran who had served in Afghanistan, had apparently been wrestling with his own demons: officers responded to a disturbance at his home in April, and mental health specialists spoke to him about his military service after suspecting that he might be suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. But they decided he was not a danger to himself or others, and determined they could not force him to seek treatment.
“No idea what the motive was,” the sheriff said. “We don’t believe he was targeting people.” The shooting inside the bar, a favorite local hangout for 25 years that hosted line-dancing lessons and allowed students in starting at 18, and where on Wednesday night several college women were celebrating their 21st birthdays, began around 11 p.m. Witnesses described sudden chaos. Among the estimated 130 to 180 people at the bar were five off-duty police officers, enjoying the night like the other partyers. As patrons dove for cover, the sounds of glass shattering and gunshots rang out in the cavernous bar. The gunman prowled the emptying dance floor, shooting the wounded as they lay on the ground.
“I just started hearing these big pops,” said a witness interviewed by a local television station. Teylor Whittler, a young woman inside the bar, saw the gunman quickly reload and fire again. “He knew what he was doing,” she said. “He had perfect form.”
Sarah DeSon, 19, a communications student at California State University Channel Islands, said: “I saw sparks going and smoke. There were smoke bombs going off next to me.” The attack is only the latest in a wave of mass shootings that have plagued the country this year. A man opened fire at a Pittsburgh synagogue late last month, killing 11 people in an attack that officials said was motivated by anti-Semitism and anti-immigrant rage.
Ms. DeSon described a stampede of people fleeing the club. This week, the nation paused for one day to vote, and then, more violence. President Trump said on Twitter that he had been “fully briefed on the terrible shooting.”
“I fell on my face,” she said. “I remember looking back at one point to make sure he” — the gunman — “wasn’t behind me.” As the day wore on, a handful of victims were identified. Among them were Sgt. Ron Helus, a sheriff’s deputy only a year or so from retirement; Alaina Housely, an 18-year-old freshman at Pepperdine who loved soccer and planned to major in English literature; and Cody Coffman, 22, a baseball umpire who planned to join the army.
Chyann Worrell, a junior at the university, said she was at the bar to celebrate the 21st birthday of her friend Nellie Wong for a night of line-dancing with a live D.J. Shortly after 11 p.m., Ms. Worrell said, the gunman, wearing dark clothing and a dark baseball cap, drew his gun. He aimed it at a man near the front of the bar. Mr. Coffman’s father’s saw his son just before he left for the bar Wednesday evening. “The first thing I said to him was please don’t drink and drive,” he told reporters. “The last thing I said was, son, I love you.”
Ms. Worrell ducked for cover and heard a barrage of bullets. As she ran out of the bar, she said, she saw several bodies sprawled on the floor. Hours later, she had still not heard from two friends who had been with her. With mass shootings a fixture of life in this nation, Americans in large gatherings — at churches, concerts, public squares — have become accustomed to thinking through the possibilities, eyeing exit routes and weighing escape options, should the horrific happen.
One young woman inside the bar, Teylor Whittler, said the gunman appeared focused and did not appear to be targeting anyone in particular. “Unfortunately, our young people or people at nightclubs have learned this may happen and they think about that,” said Geoff Dean, the Ventura County sheriff, whose last day on the job before retirement was scheduled for Friday. “Fortunately it probably saved a lot of lives that they fled the scene so rapidly.”
“I saw him shoot,” Ms. Whittler said, adding that someone had yelled, “Everybody get down.” Authorities said as many as 22 people had been injured and taken to the hospital.
She said she saw him quickly reload his gun and fire again. “He knew what he was doing,” she said. “He had perfect form.” One college student, Nellie Wong, was at the bar celebrating her 21st birthday. Ms. Wong was trapped in the club until the police arrived, and described the whole thing as a blur.
“People started running to the back door,” she said, and she heard someone shout, “Get out — he’s coming.” She then fled and heard another burst of gunfire. “She’s alive though,” said Ms. Whittler, standing with Ms. Wong outside the bar. “She’s alive for her 21st birthday.”
Brendan Kelly, 22, helped several people escape from inside. “It’s your worst nightmare,” he said. “It’s terrible.” Brendan Kelly, 22, was among those who survived both the Vegas massacre and the shooting at the Borderline. “It’s your worst nightmare,” he said. “It’s terrible.”
Sergeant Helus entered Borderline with a Highway Patrol officer shortly after the first 911 calls, Sheriff Dean said. The gunman immediately started shooting at them, striking Sergeant Helus several times. Some of the survivors of both mass shootings posted about the Las Vegas shooting on social media, including the memorial event earlier this year at the Borderline. Mr. Kelly, who has posted photographs of himself on Facebook wearing a “Vegas Strong” T-shirt and at a Borderline event, said in a television interview with ABC 7, a local affiliate, “it’s too close to home. Borderline was our safe space, for lack of a better term, it was our home for the probably 30 or 45 of us who are from the greater Ventura County area who were in Vegas. That was our place where we went to the following week, three nights in a row just so we could be with each other.”
When the next group of officers entered the bar, they found Mr. Long dead in an office inside the club with an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound. The news sent convulsions through the community of Las Vegas shooting survivors who have come to call themselves the Route 91 Family, posting constantly on private Facebook groups and getting together for what they call “meet-greets.”
Hours after the shooting, local law enforcement officers and F.B.I. agents arrived at the neatly kept suburban home in Newbury Park, west of Thousand Oaks, where Mr. Long lived with his mother. The home was cordoned off with red crime scene tape. Borderline is one of several places that the survivors use for these gatherings, which are meant to heal the trauma of the October 2017 shooting.
A neighbor, Tom Hanson, 70, said that Mr. Long was in middle school when they moved in. After high school, Mr. Long served five years in the Marine Corps, including seven months in Afghanistan, according to military records. He left the corps with the rank of corporal in March 2013. Janie Scott, 42, a Las Vegas survivor who runs a Facebook page for others, said that 47 people who made it out of that shooting had posted on her page that they were at Borderline last night.
Mr. Hanson described Mr. Long as an introvert who rarely left home. Sometime this spring, Mr. Hanson said he became concerned about shouting coming from the house and called the sheriff. She’d spoken with 10 of them today.
In addition to that interaction with deputies, Sheriff Dean said that Mr. Long was the victim in a January 2015 fight at a different bar in Thousand Oaks, and had also received a traffic citation. “They’re just broken,” she said. “I’m hearing a lot of: Why is this our new norm? Why is this our new norm? It shouldn’t be. At all.”
[Read more on the gunman in the Thousand Oaks shooting.] Molly Maurer, another person who said she was a survivor of both shootings, wrote on Facebook Thursday morning, “I can’t believe I am saying this again. I’m alive and home safe.”
The attack in Las Vegas — and the mass shooting at a high school in Parkland, Fla., in February — renewed the debate about the prevalence of guns in the United States and their connection to the high number of mass shootings in the country. It also came less than two weeks after a gunman massacred 11 people at a synagogue in Pittsburgh. President Trump said on Twitter that he had been “fully briefed on the terrible shooting.” Later in the day, she wrote again: “In the middle of this confusion and heartbreak, I just want to take a minute to say that Borderline is our place. Our parents came here, our friends work here, we celebrate our happy moments and drown out our worst here. We’re coming back from this stronger than ever.”
The rampage in Thousand Oaks, a city of 129,000 people about 40 miles west of Los Angeles, was the deadliest shooting in Southern California since 14 people were killed in a terrorist attack in San Bernardino in 2015. Chris Weber, 26, on Thursday considered himself lucky, twice. Last night he was on his way to the Borderline from a country music concert in Los Angeles to meet friends, when they got a call about the shooting. They rushed to the scene, standing outside the police perimeter awaiting word on the fate of their friends. And last year he planned to attend the Vegas festival, but backed out at the last minute.
Thousand Oaks is an upper middle class suburb of Los Angeles popular with law enforcement officers and military veterans. Many residents are drawn by its relatively affordable housing, with sprawling ranch houses tucked into subdivisions and cul-de-sacs. “Someone is looking over me,” he said. “And for the people who got out last night, someone was looking over them too.”
A conservative community, residents pride themselves on safety. In 2017, the Ventura County Sheriff’s Office handled just five murders in its jurisdiction, which covers thousands of square miles, though it excludes some cities, including Ventura. Many of the people he knew from the Borderline were casual acquaintances, familiar faces they saw each week, drinking beer and dancing and listening to music, even if he didn’t know their names.
Capt. Garo Kuredjian, a spokesman for the sheriff’s office, said many of the young people inside the crowded bar had turned out for a college country music night. The bar is not far from Pepperdine University, which said in a statement that several of its students were at the bar at the time of the shooting. California Lutheran University, whose campus is about four miles from the bar, said it had canceled classes on Thursday. “Now as I look back I wish I could say I was better friends with them,” he said.
The bar’s website says that for a quarter-century, it “has stood as the Ventura County’s largest country dance hall and live music venue,” with more than 2,500 square feet of open dance space. He said he knew many people who were present at both shootings. “No one should have to go through a shooting, let alone twice,” he said.
Ms. Wong, who was celebrating her birthday, was trapped in the club until the police arrived. She described the scene as a blur. Michael Millar, 25, an accountant from Thousand Oaks, grew up hanging out at the Borderline, but was not there Wednesday night, unlike many of his friends. He said that for those from Thousand Oaks it is a point of pride to not be from Los Angeles, 40 miles to the east — he said residents love their 805 area code and country music is a big thing.
“I’m so sorry your birthday got ruined,” her friend, Ms. DeSon, told her when they were reunited. The community is conservative and popular with law enforcement and military veterans. It prides itself on its safety, and has been on a list of America’s safest communities. In 2017, the Ventura County Sheriff’s Office handled just five murders in its jurisdiction, which covers thousands of square miles.
“She’s alive though. She’s alive for her 21st birthday,” said Ms. Whittler, whose badly scratched leg had just been bandaged by emergency medical workers. Moments later, Ms. Whittler’s parents arrived in a truck to check in on her. On Thursday Mr. Millar was speaking to a friend who survived both mass shootings. He said that just like in Vegas, when he heard the first shots he thought they were firecrackers. But this time, at the Borderline, a learned response kicked in.
“Were you hit?” her mother asked, with panic in her eyes. “No, it’s just a scratch, I’m fine, I’m fine,” Ms. Whittler said. He told Mr. Millar, “I learned from Vegas not to think twice, but to just get out.”
Michael Millar, 25, who lives near the Borderline and is a regular, was on his way to the bar Wednesday night when people began to call him frantically asking if he was inside.
He said that the bar was popular with police officers and firefighters, and that it was often busy on Wednesdays because it hosts a college night and allows students under 21 to enter.
As Mr. Millar and his friend Chris Weber walked toward the bar, which was surrounded by police tape, they received a call that a friend who worked the door had been shot. “She’s the sweetest, nicest girl,” Mr. Millar said, trailing off.
Mr. Weber said that many of the people he believed were at Borderline had attended the music festival in Las Vegas last year where dozens died. He was frantically calling friends early Thursday to try to confirm who was inside.
Young women who were at the Borderline expressed disbelief that the bar, which they sometimes go to several times a week, could become the site of such violence.
“It’s safe. It’s a safe place to be,” said Erika Sigman, a sophomore at Cal State Channel Islands. “You can stay out all night at Borderline because there’s major security.”
Ms. DeSon said she believed she survived because of the quick reaction of a friend, Cody Coffman.
“He was protecting everyone,” she said. “He got up and he just yelled, ‘Everyone, run!’”
At a nearby center where families awaited information, Cody’s father, Jason Coffman, was frantically searching for any word on his 22-year-old son, whose cellphone went unanswered.
“I am in the dark right now,” Mr. Coffman said. “It’s actually tearing me up.”
When he tracked the cellphone, it pinged from inside the club.
“It’s not moving,” he said. “It’s there.”
Mr. Coffman later learned that his son had died.