A gunman entered Borderline Bar and Grill, in Thousand Oaks, California, late Wednesday night and opened fire. By the time the rampage was over, at least 13 people were dead, including one police officer and the gunman.
Thousand Oaks, California, is routinely named one of America’s safest cities for its relatively low number of crimes reported in FBI statistics. But such day-to-day statistics can’t neatly forecast mass shootings, which are seemingly random and can happen anywhere. The sites of mass shootings over the past few years have touched so many corners of American public life: churches, malls, synagogues, bars, concerts, schools, movie theaters, office buildings, even a yoga studio.
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The bar, located near Pepperdine University and California Lutheran University, was frequented by college students, and it was hosting a “college country night” for students on Wednesday, according to Ventura County Sheriff Geoff Dean. Pepperdine confirmed on Twitter that multiple students were among the hundreds of people inside the crowded bar at the time of the shooting. Law-enforcement officials have not yet determined a motive. Southern California had another mass shooting on a similar scale just three years ago, in 2015, when 14 people were killed in San Bernardino.