Attacker among 13 dead in shooting at southern California bar

A gunman killed 12 people, including a deputy sheriff, when he opened fire in a bar in Southern California on Wednesday night, Ventura County Sheriff Geoff Dean said on Thursday.

The suspected gunman was also shot dead by police, he said. Many other people were wounded in the attack in Thousand Oaks, a Los Angeles suburb.

The Sheriff’s Office Sgt Eric Buchow said hundreds of people were inside the Borderline Bar & Grill in Thousand Oaks at 11:20 pm (12.50 pm Thursday IST), and shots were still being fired when deputies arrived.

The bar was hosting a college country music



night.

Nick Steinwender, student body president at nearby California Lutheran University, rushed to the scene when he heard about a shooting at the bar where he knew friends and fellow students were inside.

“It was chaos, people jumping out of windows, people hopping over gates to get out” Steinwender told KABC-TV.

He said he heard from people inside that they were hiding in bathrooms and the attic of the bar.

It has been “quite some time” since there was a shooting of any kind in Thousand Oaks, a city of about 130,000 people about 40 miles (64 kilometers) west of Los Angeles, just across the county line.