Thousand Oaks, CA – Thirteen people are dead after a gunman opened fire on a crowd at a country dance bar holding a weekly “college night” Wednesday in Southern California, sending hundreds fleeing in terror including some who used barstools to break windows and escape, authorities said.
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The dead included 11 people inside the bar, the gunman and a 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 at a news conference early Thursday in the parking lot of the Borderline Bar & Grill. “There’s blood everywhere.”
The gunman was tall and wearing all black with a hood over his head and his face partly covered, witnesses told TV stations at the scene. He first fired on a person working the door then appeared to open fire at random at the people inside, they said.
Many more people had more minor injuries, including some that came from the attempt to flee, Dean said.
Sheriff’s Sgt. Ron Helus and a passing highway patrolman were responding to several 911 calls when they arrived at the Borderline Bar & Grill in Thousand Oaks at about 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 cleared the perimeter and pulled Helus out, and waited as a SWAT team and scores more officers arrived.
By the time they entered the bar again the gunfire had stopped, and they found 12 people dead inside, including the gunman.
It’s not yet clear how the gunman died, and authorities do not yet know his name or have any idea of a motive, Dean said.
It was college night and country two-step lessons were being offered Wednesday at the Borderline, according to its website.
When the gunman entered, people screamed and fled to all corners of the bar, while a few people threw barstools through the windows and helped dozens to escape, witnesses said.
Tayler Whitler, 19, said she was on the dance floor with her friends nearby when she saw the gunman shooting and heard screams to “get down.”
“It was really, really really shocking,” Whitler told KABC-TV as she stood with her father in the Borderline parking lot. “It looked like he knew what he was doing.”
Shootings of any kind are very rare in Thousand Oaks, a city of about 130,000 people about 40 miles (64 kilometers) west of Los Angeles, just across the county line.
Helus was a 29-year veteran of the force with a wife and son and planned to retire in the coming year, said the sheriff, who choked back tears several times as he talked about the sergeant who was also his longtime friend.
“Ron was a hardworking, dedicated sheriff’s sergeant who was totally committed,” Dean said, “and tonight, as I told his wife, he died a hero because he went in to save lives.”
Trumpinthewhitehouse
Can’t wait for your comment that it’s Obama’s fault….
This is the 48th mass killing in the US so far this year. Two hundred and forty-three people have died in these attacks.
America loves guns more than their children. Idiots. Australia banned guns 20 years ago and there has never been a mass shooting since. Criminals have guns but are not interested in mass shootings, they only shoot each other. I’m starting to think you deserve these tragedies if you are so stupid as to allow psychotics to own multiple machine guns and automatic weapons. In Australia we seem to still be able to live our lives without anyone having guns and we know we won’t get shot when we walk down the street or go to school. Idiots.
Killer was obviously a member of an NRA well regulated militia, as in the 2nd Amendment… Or maybe he was an escapee from that Caravan… or not…
Guns don’t kill people, people kill people..I have served in the military, law enforcement and am a normal law abiding citizen. I carry a permitted concealed weapon daily and have never committed a crime or murdered anyone. mentally deficient individuals are not permitted to own fire arms, do they slip through the cracks, sometimes, however stricter vetting of purchasers is the solution, not the ban of weapons. Chicago, IL has one of the toughest gun laws in the USA, yet its murder rate is the highest in the country. Recently in Birmingham, Alabama a man and his 2 sons were sitting in a McDonalds when an armed masked individual entered and started shooting. The law abiding licensed to carry individual shot & killed the shooter, even though he & his son were shot, and thus preventing an even greater carnage. Unfortunately this incident was not widely reported by the media. Perhaps civility & respect still prevail in Australia. JOBS not MOBS!
PS as I said, criminals have guns in Australia. You can buy anything for money anywhere in the world. Non-criminals don’t have guns because it’s so risky to buy and the penalties are severe for having one. You’re average 18 year old here won’t know how to get one even if he wanted to kill his whole class. You can’t go to target and just buy one.
That the killer wasn’t a Trump supporter, they would be living up this story for weeks.