California mass shooting: some inside bar had survived Las Vegas massacre, friends say

As friends and family anxiously converged at the Borderline Bar in Thousand Oaks, California, early Thursday, after a gunman killed 12 people there, it emerged that some of those inside had had an earlier brush with death.

Some patrons of the country music bar had also been at the Route 91 Harvest music festival in Las Vegas, Nevada, last year when a gunman opened fire, killing 58 people and wounding hundreds, friends said.

Chandler Gunn, 23, of Newbury Park said his mother came to his room and told him about the Wednesday night shooting.

He rushed to the Borderline and called a friend who works there, who was also at the Route 91 festival. His friend told him that some type of tear gas was thrown into the bar. She saw smoke and heard gunshots and ran out the back toward nearby flats.

Gunn has not been able to contact her again but knows she’s safe. He said Wednesday nights are college country nights at the bar, and open to people 18 and older for line dancing lessons.

“A lot of people in the Route 91 situation go here,” he said. “There’s people that live a whole lifetime without seeing this, and then there’s people that have seen it twice.”

People stood on the sidewalk making frantic phone calls. One young woman stood with her family on the phone trying to get details. Her family declined to speak.