Sad, tragic, horrible, and senseless.
This latest shooting in Thousand Oaks, California, earlier this week — which took the lives of 12 innocent people — has again ripped through the fabric of our country and led to countless calls for “Why this, again?” not to mention the predictable calls for more gun control measures.
But perhaps the saddest of all are the now-echoing words of the shooter — who left these chilling messages behind in his wake.
“It’s too bad I won’t get to see all the illogical and pathetic reasons people will put in my mouth as to why I did it,” Ian David Long wrote in a social media post, according to an ABC news piece.
“Fact is I had no reason to do it, and I just thought … f*** it, life is boring so why not?”
In the next social media message he left behind, Long also said, “I hope people call me insane.”
He also said, “The only thing you people do after these shootings is ‘hopes and prayers’… or ‘keep you in my thoughts’ … every time… and wonder why these keep happening.”
Hundreds of people were inside the Borderline Bar & Grill, a popular college hangout in Thousand Oaks, when shots rang out at about 11:20 p.m. on Wednesday night, Ventura County police said.
Deputies and highway patrolmen arrived at the scene within mere minutes of receiving multiple calls of shots fired.
Law enforcement officials visited the home of the Thousand Oaks shooter in April of 2018 in response to reports that he was “somewhat irate, acting a little irrationally,” but determined he didn't qualify for an involuntary psychiatric hold https://t.co/3t0LaOO8Yc
— Los Angeles Times (@latimes) November 9, 2018
Ventura County Sgt. Ron Helus, a sheriff’s sergeant, was among the first to rush inside the bar that was the scene of yet another mass shooting in this country.
Helus was struck many times and later died at the hospital, said authorities, as many outlets, including NBC News, reported.
Related: The Hero in the California Shooting Was a Dedicated Cop
In total, 12 people lost their lives in this tragic and senseless shooting.
Witnesses inside the bar told local news outlets that patrons used chairs to break windows. Some also hid in the club’s attic in between rounds of gunfire.
Several witnesses told TV stations that a tall man clad all in black with a hood and his face partly covered first shot at a bouncer working at the door.
Then he began firing.
“Ian David Long, 28, lived in Newbury Park, not far from the club where he threw smoke bombs and rained bullets on a crowd of more than 100 people Wednesday night.”
The suspect in the shooting was also found dead in the bar, The Los Angeles Times reported.
The suspect was an ex-Marine who apparently was suffering from PTSD.
The California bar shooter was on social media during the massacre https://t.co/3FjBPES5x4
— The Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) November 9, 2018
The outlet also said, “Ian David Long, 28, lived in Newbury Park, not far from the club where he threw smoke bombs and rained bullets on a crowd of more than 100 people Wednesday night.”
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