California gun victim survived Las Vegas attack (2024)

A 27-year-old navy veteran and country music lover was among those who survived America’s deadliest modern mass shooting a year ago at the Route 91 Harvest festival in Las Vegas.

Telemachus Orfanos was again in the crowd when a gunman ran amok at the Borderline Bar & Grill in Thousand Oaks, California, at a country and western theme night on Wednesday. This time he was not so fortunate. He was one of 12 victims.

His mother, Susan Schmidt-Orfanos, vented her anger yesterday. “I don’t want prayers. I don’t want thoughts,” she said. “I want those bastards in Congress . . . they need to pass gun control so no one else has a child that doesn’t come home.”

The gunman was identified as Ian Long, 28, a former US Marine with a history of erratic behaviour. He is believed to have shot and killed himself.

The Borderline Bar & Grill has been a haven for local people still dealing with the effects of the Las Vegas shooting on October 1 last year, when a high-stakes gambler with an arsenal of modified rifles fired hundreds of bullets into a crowd of country music fans from his 32nd-floor hotel room on the Las Vegas Strip, killing 58 and injuring hundreds.

Brendan Kelly, 22, another former Marine, who has a large tattoo on his left arm memorialising the Las Vegas shooting, said that the experience had changed his life and left him always on edge — even in Thousand Oaks, an affluent community near Los Angeles that this year was ranked the third- safest city in America.

“Everywhere I go, everything I do is affected,” he said. “I don’t sit in a room with my back to the door. You’re always picking up on social cues. You’re always over-analysing people, trying to figure out: if something were to go down, what would I do?”

He was on the dance floor at the Borderline when he heard the unmistakeable sound of gunfire. “The chills go up your spine,” he said. “You don’t think it’s real — again.”

Mr Kelly flung two friends to the floor and covered them with his body. He dragged one woman out of a back exit and, using his belt and T-shirt, fashioned a tourniquet for his friend’s bleeding arm. Two other friends were later named among the dead.

Dan Manrique, 33, also a former Marine, who worked for a charity helping veterans to settle back into civilian life was killed in Long’s attack. His brother, Marcos Manrique, was told that Dan had been outside in the bar’s car park when he heard the first shots. He ran inside to help.

Justin Meek, 23, was a bouncer and promoter of the theme night who also did social work and had recently earned a degree in criminal justice. He was killed trying to protect others, witnesses said.

Alaina Housley, 18, had recently enrolled at the nearby Pepperdine University and hoped to become a singer. Her friends lost her in the chaos as they fled the shooting. They learnt later that she was among those who died.

Kristina Morisette, 20, had bought her first car a short time before with money that she earned working at the Borderline. “We didn’t want her life to end,” her mother, Martha, said. “But we don’t want her memories now to end, either.”

Sean Adler, 48, was a popular salesman and sports coach who had recently realised a dream by opening a coffee shop. He was working as a bouncer at the Borderline to help with cashflow and support his wife and two sons while the business got off the ground.

Ron Helus, 54, a Ventura county sheriff’s sergeant, was mortally wounded moments after he broke off from a phone call to his wife. “I got to go handle a call. I love you, I’ll talk to you later,” he told her, according to his friend, the sheriff Geoff Dean. He charged into the bar to confront the gunman and died in an exchange of fire.

He had been about to retire after 29 years as a policeman. In his spare time he ran a firearms safety training business. It was called Gun Control.

The FBI said that it was too early to speculate on the gunman’s motives. Long, who served a tour in Afghanistan as a machinegunner, fired seemingly at random inside the bar.

President Trump blamed the attacker’s alleged mental health problems for the shooting. Speaking to reporters at the White House, he described Long as “a very sick puppy” who had “a lot of problems”.

Police had visited Long’s home in Newbury Park, four miles from the bar, in April to answer a disturbance call. “He was raving hell in the house, kicking holes in the walls and stuff,” Richard Berge, who lived near by, said.

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