# Mass Shooting in Thousand Oaks, CA



## Cookie_ (Nov 8, 2018)

Twelve people including a police officer were killed by a gunman at a crowded bar in Thousand Oaks, California, late Wednesday, officials said.

10-12 (currently) people with varying degrees of injury, and about as many missing still.

Gunman is 29 Y/O white Male, heavily tatted; no identification. Killed at scene.

Senseless tragedy. Hope the injured recover fully.


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## GOTWA (Nov 8, 2018)

Early reports from the dude's neighbor state he was a Vet suffering from PTSD.

Thousand Oaks shooting LIVE: Latest updates as gunman open fires in Californian bar

Update...because below.

Marine Guns Down 12 People, Including Deputy, At Thousand Oaks Bar, Authorities Say

"Authorities identified the shooter as Ian David Long, 28, a Marine Corps veteran who was visited by the Ventura County sheriff’s crisis intervention team after a call of a “subject disturbing” at his home in nearby Newbury Park back in April. He was never placed on a mental health hold, and Sheriff Geoff Dean said Long may have been suffering from PTSD."


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## Ooh-Rah (Nov 8, 2018)

If it were up to me we would have a 24 hour cooling off period before any of these types of stories were even permitted to be posted.



GOTWA said:


> Early reports from the dude's neighbor state he was a Vet suffering from PTSD.



What early reports?  The story you linked says, "_A neighbour told ABC 7 that he is a veteran who had been suffering from PTSD._"

That is far from a "report". 

Can we please wait just 5 minutes before posting every "so-and-so-said" thought that makes it onto the internet?


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## GOTWA (Nov 8, 2018)

I understand what you're saying, but I disagree with it.  It's literally an early report, from a news article, that was published with that content.  Should I have stated that it's RAW information?  I thought I was pretty clear and the assumption could be made that it's subject to change.


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## Ooh-Rah (Nov 8, 2018)

GOTWA said:


> It's literally an early report, from a news article, that was published with that content.



So what if he was a Vet? (He was a Marine)
So what if he suffered from PTS?

Do either of those two bits of information add anything to the story?  Do they cause one to say..."ohhh, a Vet with PTS?  It all makes sense now".

And to reemphasize - what early report?  An early report would be something like, "Bob Berditzman, the suspect's best friend and neighbor tells us that he was a Vet, suffered from terrible PTS, and was on medication to treat fantasies of shooting up a mall."

"A neighbor said so." is not an early report.



GOTWA said:


> I thought I was pretty clear and the assumption could be made that it's subject to change.


Then why even post it?  Why not wait until it is shown relevant to the story?


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## DC (Nov 8, 2018)

Condolences to the fallen. These acts are a special kind of evil.


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## Gunz (Nov 8, 2018)

RIP.


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## Jaknight (Nov 8, 2018)

Damn those poor people it’s tragic


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## MikeDelta (Nov 8, 2018)

What can I say?...It’s just downright awful all the way around. 

@Ooh-Rah Nice touch leaving off the D...PTS is what it is, no more no less. Best part of this thread for me, sadly.


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## BlackSmokeRisinG (Nov 8, 2018)

This shit is bananas. No point, and while possibly linked to PTS, that's no motive or justfication. It's only wrong and evil, and I think Ohrah is right, it's all BS until we know otherwise. Almost pointless to say.


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## policemedic (Nov 8, 2018)

What a damn sin.  RIP to the dead, especially Sgt. Ron Helus of the Ventura County Sheriff’s Office.  You led from the front and ran towards gunfire to save others.


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## DA SWO (Nov 8, 2018)

Medical profession has to take some blame.
The clown is reported to have fantasized about shooting a mall up, here's a pill was the solution.
I don't like red flag laws, but this is a case that should have earned him a second look.
I wonder if he was off his meds?


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## DC (Nov 8, 2018)

DA SWO said:


> Medical profession has to take some blame.
> The clown is reported to have fantasized about shooting a mall up, here's a pill was the solution.
> I don't like red flag laws, but this is a case that should have earned him a second look.
> I wonder if he was off his meds?


Ca has red flag in place and hi cap mag ban as well. It all failed those folks. Sad days for sure. My kids have friends at those schools. All safe.


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## Kraut783 (Nov 8, 2018)

RIP Sgt. Ron Helus 

Set to retire soon, rest easy brother...


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## racing_kitty (Nov 8, 2018)

Truly heartbreaking. Sgt. Helus, rest in eternal peace. Thank you for your sacrifice. May the family and friends of the victims find comfort and love in their darkest hours.


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## Beagle (Nov 8, 2018)

Not sure if true, but it mentioned the shooter online nickname/alias

https://www.cnn.com/2018/11/08/us/thousand-oaks-gunman/index.html


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## ShadowSpear (Nov 8, 2018)

Beagle said:


> Not sure if true, but it mentioned the shooter online nickname/alias
> 
> https://www.cnn.com/2018/11/08/us/thousand-oaks-gunman/index.html



It looks like he was a member here, only had a few posts, and last logged in in 2017. 

It’s tragic what he did and a shame we weren’t in his life at the time to prevent this from happening. If anyone out there feels like they’re veering toward a similar path, please reach out to the many brothers and sisters you have on this site.


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## Gordus (Nov 8, 2018)

Man what a tragedy. Rest in Eternal Peace all the victims especialy Sgt. Ron Helus who tried to stop it. 

Shadowspear, it's not your fault. You couldn't have possibly seen this coming.


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## Andoni (Nov 8, 2018)

RIP SGT Helus! My thoughts and prayers are with those killed, injured and missing and their families!!

PTS is not a reason for shooting people- or a reason for a pattern of aggressive and hostile behavior- it's an excuse. 

Taking the hard right and not the easy left is a choice. PTS doesn't take that choice away and neither does TBI - no matter how serious. The hard right is to reach out and don't stop reaching until you find the help you need, to do the work yourself. Anything else is quitting.


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## medicchick (Nov 8, 2018)

Someone did some digging for CNN to post about here. It doesn't look like he ever posted his whole name.


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## BloodStripe (Nov 8, 2018)

Looks like another Marine brother was killed during the shooting, Dan Manrique, who also was the local chapter head of Team RWB. RIP to all killed.


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## DA SWO (Nov 8, 2018)

BloodStripe said:


> Looks like another Marine brother was killed during the shooting, Dan Manrique, who also was the local chapter head of Team RWB. RIP to all killed.


I work with the local RWB Chapter.
This sucks even more.


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## Ooh-Rah (Nov 8, 2018)

DA SWO said:


> I work with the local RWB Chapter.



Classy on their part.

Home - Team RWB


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## 4859 (Nov 8, 2018)

So this is why I actually came here.

Thousand Oaks is my wife's hometown, and where my parents currently reside. It's also apparently on fire now too... because of course it is.

Actually been to borders. Was on leave for my wife's 21st birthday, and she dragged me there, was one of her favourite places in the world. Was a nice place.

But that's neither here nor there.

We've all seen the news reports parading around 'war vet with ptsd'. 

On top of the fact its a bunch of irrelevant houey, it's also spreading a lot of disinformation and fear, with its obvious leap at implications and suggestions, from people with absolutely no knowledge about what they are implying and suggesting. Creating an environment of fear, both of and from veterans, the kind of fearful environment that would discourage veterans from seeking the help they need and deserve.

Now many of you who have been briefed on this will know this. But even so, misinformation and doubt and denial are always there, and of course there are the young and the fresh.

PTSD does not make people decide to go shoot shit up. That's not how it works.

PTSD is triggered by stimuli that closely resembles the stimuli that was present during the high stress/trauma events. Sounds, smells, sights, and the individual reacts with the frame of mind he was in during that time.

Like say for example, driving  down the dusty desert highway between Vegas and California, and seeing the familiar sight of a body off the side of the road pointing something at you and tilting their head just so out of your peripherals.

Now, to my credit I caught myself and slammed on the brakes, and to the officer with speed guns credit, he was real good at diving out of the way. That was... a very long day for me. But the end result was I got the help I needed, and the good officer got a fresh pair of undershorts.

Now I see this event has really upset some people here, like a punch to the the gut followed by a kick to the nuts. And I am sure we all know exactly how they feel, because we feel it just the same.

Seeing these ignorant scapegoating articles is irritatimg, hell I was more than irritated, it was practically fear mongering.

The solution to fear is to spread the facts:

Don’t blame PTSD for Thousand Oaks shooting, say experts

Now I don't do the Twitter and the Facebook. But I'm pretty sure spreading that around can't hurt none.

Now this cat had plenty o problems, problems that werent being adressed, that need to be addressed. But it's the same problems I'm pretty sure a whole lot of us are dealing with ourselves, specially if you're out. I bet I can give a pretty damn good laundry list of all the straws that was on his back. Sure I'm not alone.

We don't need any more unnecessary, untrue stigmas piled on veterans coming between them and seeking the help they need and deserve.

Don't matter how badass you are. Green beret, special forces, rangered out sappered, tabs so far down your sleeves they falling off your cuff.

Audie Murphy himself had it real bad. And ain't none of us more badass than Audie Murphy.


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## Muppet (Nov 9, 2018)

Rest easy to the fallen. God damn shame....


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## 0699 (Nov 9, 2018)

RIP to the fallen.


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## DarkSider883 (Nov 9, 2018)

DA SWO said:


> Medical profession has to take some blame.
> The clown is reported to have fantasized about shooting a mall up, here's a pill was the solution.
> I don't like red flag laws, but this is a case that should have earned him a second look.
> I wonder if he was off his meds?



throwing pills at people who need real healing on a mental and even spiritual level is not the answer. The rest of the world doesn't have this obssession with psychiatric drugs like Americans do and the rest of the world is doing just fine.


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## Isiah6:8 (Nov 9, 2018)

DarkSider883 said:


> The rest of the world doesn't have this obssession with psychiatric drugs like Americans do and the rest of the world is doing just fine.



This is what I disagree with, it is incorrect.


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## Ooh-Rah (Nov 9, 2018)

DarkSider883 said:


> throwing pills at people who need real healing on a mental and even spiritual level is not the answer.


What is your medical background or experience to back up this statement?



DarkSider883 said:


> The rest of the world doesn't have this obssession with psychiatric drugs like Americans do and the rest of the world is doing just *fine*.


It is fair to say that you and I have a very different definition of the word, "fine".


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## medicchick (Nov 9, 2018)

DarkSider883 said:


> throwing pills at people who need real healing on a mental and even spiritual level is not the answer. The rest of the world doesn't have this obssession with psychiatric drugs like Americans do and the rest of the world is doing just fine.


You are 19 (according to your intro even though your profile says 30) with no apparent background in medicine or PTSD.  Sometimes yes a pill is the answer so you can LEARN how to cope with the mental demons.  There are plenty of other countries that use pills to treat mental ailments however the US has looser media control.


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## policemedic (Nov 9, 2018)

DarkSider883 said:


> throwing pills at people who need real healing on a mental and even spiritual level is not the answer. The rest of the world doesn't have this obssession with psychiatric drugs like Americans do and the rest of the world is doing just fine.



What exactly is the extent of your pharmacological and psychiatric expertise?

ETA: @Ooh-Rah beat me to it; shoulda known


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## DC (Nov 9, 2018)

DarkSider883 said:


> throwing pills at people who need real healing on a mental and even spiritual level is not the answer. The rest of the world doesn't have this obssession with psychiatric drugs like Americans do and the rest of the world is doing just fine.


You need an enlistment in combat arms and multiple tours to even reply on the subject.


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## Marauder06 (Nov 9, 2018)

DarkSider883 said:


> throwing pills at people who need real healing on a mental and even spiritual level is not the answer. The rest of the world doesn't have this obssession with psychiatric drugs like Americans do and the rest of the world is doing just fine.



The only reason that "the rest of the world" isn't throwing drugs at this problem on the scale America is, is because "the rest of the world" can't afford it.


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## Ranger Psych (Nov 10, 2018)

Even better is how psychiatric medications work on the human. 1 might help some, the other 8-20 you had to try on the way there can alter your perception of reality from "barney did the moon landing" to "smell the sound of purple" to "mall = popup targets". 

This dude had no signs, reading back, to wanting/needing/seeming to need help. PTSD/PTS/A Natural Reaction To An Unnatural Situation, isn't something that would cause this. 

4859 already laid out the most major knee-jerk reaction that CAN happen, Stimuli developed in combat required reactions for survival. Unfortunately for us combat vets, those same stimuli can be prevalent in "pleasant society" and you only reconfigure your reaction over time. Just like having to relearn tasks that you might have learned incorrectly. I dislike laser-shooting cops running speed-traps for exactly that reason.

PTSD isn't an excuse, and very rarely is it actually a possible reason for reactionary behavior.  This wasn't a reactionary event, this was pre-meditated for some reason we'll probably never know. 

RIP to those deserving.


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## Diamondback 2/2 (Nov 10, 2018)

PTSD/PTS, whatever you want to call it, isn't the cause of people doing crazy murder shit.  However, it can lead to other psych issues,  deep depression,  paranoia, alcohol and or drug use. Those issues can make someone crazy and lead them to do crazy murder shit. 

What I've personally dealt with and have witnessed from others, is self medicating with alcohol or drugs or both,  leads you down dark roads both mentally and socially/civil. This can be a very easy and quick thing to fall into and without good people in your life it can and will absolutely consume your life.  

I don't think it's fair to blame this jackasses murdering rampage on his PTSD or lack of treatment. It's most likely a result of many other issues in combination with him being a fucking murdering asshole. 

$.02


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## Ooh-Rah (Nov 10, 2018)

Diamondback 2/2 said:


> It's most likely a result of many other issues in combination with him being a fucking murdering asshole.



He had a history before the military.

Thousand Oaks gunman had a history of angry outbursts


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## 4859 (Nov 10, 2018)

Ooh-Rah said:


> He had a history before the military.
> 
> Thousand Oaks gunman had a history of angry outbursts



Man.... I can't read it, Bezos keeps asking me for a dollar.


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## Ooh-Rah (Nov 10, 2018)

4859 said:


> Man.... I can't read it, Bezos keeps asking me for a dollar.


Here is the crux of it.....

By Frances Stead Sellers ,
Mark Berman and Emily Wax-Thibodeaux
November 9 at 10:07 PM
_Ian David Long was a gifted sprinter whose fast-twitch muscles propelled him around the Newbury Park High School track. But one day during his senior year, each time he passed the girls’ head coach, he hurled invective in her face.

And each time, Dominique Colell yelled back. “Another mile,” the young coach demanded, penalizing Long for each curse word.

“He owed me 13 miles in one day,” she said.

Later that year, Colell said, Long assaulted her.

The coach found a cellphone and was searching through the contacts in hopes of identifying its owner when Long lunged. He screamed at her to hand over the phone and grabbed her stomach and buttocks, she said.

“On my track field, students were going to be held to a standard,” Colell said. “Everybody went with it but him. I never recall [another] student cussing me or groping me.”

Long’s defiance frightened Colell so much that she prayed he would stay away from the girls on the team and was relieved to see him graduate and join the Marines.

She thought little about him until she turned on the news this week to hear authorities say the student athlete turned machine-gunner had shown up at the Borderline Bar & Grill in Thousand Oaks, Calif., with a handgun and killed 12 people before turning the gun on himself._


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## 4859 (Nov 10, 2018)

Ooh-Rah said:


> Here is the crux of it.....
> 
> By Frances Stead Sellers ,
> Mark Berman and Emily Wax-Thibodeaux
> ...


Damn.

What a shitbrick.


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## digrar (Nov 10, 2018)

> “While he was inside the bar, and in between volleys of shots, apparently, based on the time stamps, he was posting on Instagram,” said Sgt. Eric Buschow of the Ventura County Sheriff’s Office.



Instagram took the posts down, but have saved them for the investigation.


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## Ooh-Rah (Nov 11, 2018)

Going back to my post at the top of page 1 in this thread.  This is why I get so freeking frustrated when I see the PTS tag thrown around before anything is officially verified.  

US Marines say they have no record of California gunman telling doctors was suffering from PTSD | Daily Mail Online

The US Marines say they have no record that the former service member who killed 11 people in a California bar ever contacted the Corps for PTSD issues.

Ian Long, 28, a former machine gunner, served in Afghanistan between 2010 and 2011, eventually leaving the service in 2013.

TMZ reported that Long allegedly suffered from PTSD for years, and the Marines told the outlet that he never indicated that he was suffering from mental health issues.

A representative for the US Department for Veteran's Affairs also told the website that Long never enrolled in VA healthcare either.


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## Blizzard (Nov 11, 2018)

I'm with you @Ooh-Rah as well as your early comments in re: to the news media reporting he was a former Marine  blah-blah as though it had anything to with his actions.


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## Gunz (Nov 12, 2018)

Fucker had a screw loose. Wanted to off himself but was too chicken shit to die alone. Nothing to read into it. He's just like all the other evil fucks who've done shit like this. Hell ain't hot enough.


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## Grunt (Nov 12, 2018)

He was a murderer that happened to have been a Marine. Nothing more or less.

In today's climate, any time a "veteran" does something like this, he automatically has PTSD. They simply can't wrap their minds around the fact that he was simply a murderer. Just another way to prevent anyone from having to take *personal accountability* for their sick actions.


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## Ooh-Rah (Nov 12, 2018)

Sadly true....
Breaking News: The story of the next mass shooting. OPINION EXCHANGE  |  Breaking News: The story of the next mass shooting


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## Cookie_ (Nov 12, 2018)

Ooh-Rah said:


> Sadly true....
> Breaking News: The story of the next mass shooting. OPINION EXCHANGE  |  Breaking News: The story of the next mass shooting



I know The Onion started it back in 2014(?), but its disheartening that it went from satire of reaction to sad truth.


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## Gunz (Nov 12, 2018)

Ooh-Rah said:


> Sadly true....
> Breaking News: The story of the next mass shooting. OPINION EXCHANGE  |  Breaking News: The story of the next mass shooting



A blatantly biased satire.


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## Ooh-Rah (Nov 12, 2018)

Ocoka said:


> A blatantly biased satire.



Agreed.  But it is pretty spot-on in regards to what the next news story format will resemble.


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## DC (Nov 12, 2018)

All this media yakyak and zero conversation on how to stop it. The left believes the gun is the cause and right doesn’t do anything. If it’s mental illness( which I believe it is and ONLY is) then why haven’t politicians with the power started something to treat the problem instead of band aiding it all the time? I for one am disgusted with ALL of the political/media scene. This event wasn’t even completely investigated before the call to ban arms went viral. Sports teams are even on the rant. Holding signs ENOUGH. Solve it or arm everyone. Yea I’m jaded but Fuck this...it’s madness.


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## Kraut783 (Nov 12, 2018)

Because the NBA cares.......not.


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## DC (Nov 12, 2018)

Justin Meek was the son of one of my COs. Sad


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