Twelve people, including a sheriff’s deputy, were killed after a gunman opened fire at a bar in Thousand Oaks, California, late Wednesday, authorities confirmed early Thursday.
The shooter is also reported to be dead.
The shooter, Ian Long is a 28-year-old former U.S. Marine. He allegedly opened fire on a crowd gathered Wednesday at Borderline Bar & Grill.
Ventura County Sheriff Geoff Dean said the gun used by Ian David Long was designed to hold a magazine of 10 rounds, with one additional round in the chamber.
“We have no way to know how many rounds he actually had in there,” Dean said Thursday morning at a news conference.
Authorities believe Long legally bought the gun. Officials with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives are investigating.
Dean said Long appeared to have shot himself after killing a dozen others at the bar Wednesday night. In the aftermath of the attack, authorities were working to determine any connection between Long and Borderline Bar & Grill.
“We haven’t found any correlation,” Dean said. “We’ll probably know more after we execute the search warrant at his house — that maybe there was a motive for this particular night — but at this point we have no information leading to that at all.”
Dean said authorities do not believe the shooting was random, although Long appeared to choose his targets at-random once inside the bar.
Twelve people were killed and about a dozen others were wounded in Wednesday’s attack. Dean said one person suffered a minor gunshot injury while between eight and 15 others were injured while jumping out windows or diving under tables to escape the bullets.
Officials have not identified any of the victims aside from Sgt. Ron Helus, a Ventura County sheriff’s deputy slain while responding to reports of the shooting.
“Ron was a great guy. He was close to everybody,” Dean said. “He was a hard worker and hearts are broken all over.”
(AJC)
