The wife and I hit Costco this evening to do our shopping. While heading towards the front, we crossed paths with an older white dude dressed punk rock and with a mohawk. His look was odd enough to catch both of our attentions. After getting home and putting things away, my wife sees on her FB there was a shooting at Costco that just happened. Turns out it most likely happened just after we walked out. Apparently there was an argument between the guy we saw and a family. At some point, shots were fired and it sounds like the guy we saw was killed. The news was calling him the shooter and that he was thought to be dead inside the store. This did not make alot of sense at first that he was the shooter and was found dead inside. One update on local news FB says an off duty PD may have dropped the guy with a concealed pistol. This makes more sense. I'm sure more info will come out in the coming days. It just feels kind of crazy to think how close we were to being right there if not in the middle of it. My wife is kinda freaked out by it. I carry concealed and had my pistol on me tonight. It makes me think about what would I have done had we been right there. I have taken training classes and train with dry fire and at the range, but real life situations are a different deal. I would like to think training would kick in, but right now I am feeling like I NEED to train more to be ready if something happens. This also confirms something I have tried to abide by since I started carrying concealed... Always carry, always. You never know when things can go sideways.
The price of freedom is constant vigilance...and when seconds count, cops are only minutes away. Glad you and the missus didn’t get caught in any of the shit.
Scary shit to have gunshots near you. I live in New Orleans where the streets seem to be drowning in guns. Glad y'all weren't involved.
Scary shit. The more (quality) training you have, the better, but in all likelihood you’re not going to be on the offensive going after a shooter. What would probably happen is that the shooting would start, you’d draw your gun and get yourself and your family to cover. If the shooter came your way looking for more targets, you’d ambush him.
Thank you for being a responsible gun owner. Keep dry firing. Keep a spare mag. Keep being vigilant. Read “Left Of Bang”.
Wait, you guys are different people? Is 589 in the military, or is that another guy with a wsmc or similar username?
I'm aware of that, but didn't realize there was more than one guy with that and his number as his username
That's pretty crazy. Must be a surreal feeling to have been that close to a shooting. I've always felt that, while there is a lot of gun violence in America, the chances of being affected by it are about the same as getting struck by lightning. Starting to change my tune these days, though. My son was very near the Parkland shooting last year, and my brother was near the Virginia Beach shooting recently. Things are getting too close.
The I want WSMC 187, or 628 or 307. And when I lived in Norco I went to the Costco all the time. Glad you made it out.
That's what I would think too. Thanks. I will look for that. It is sorta surreal and we weren't actually inside when it happened. Going by timeline of when PD was dispatched, I would say we were just pulling out of the parking lot. I can only imagine how those inside when it happened are feeling today.
So if you happen to get in an argument with an off duty policeman you can expect be justifiably shot and killed. Great work Mr. officer, you showed your awesome constraint through your way awesome training.
The story of what happened has certainly taken some bizarre turns. As I said in my original post, the early reports were a bit contradictory and did not make sense. But, I knew those were early reports from media based on interviews with people inside who were hopped up on adrenaline and fear. The official statement from Corona still leaves me with a few questions. My wife read through some of the comments which state the aggressor was a special needs person. If true, that certainly casts a dark cloud over an already bad situation. Without video, I'm not sure we will know the level of threat he was to the off duty officer. On the surface, it definitely seems bad. You would think his training would allow him to diffuse the situation without deadly force. However, there is no way for any of us to get inside his head and know what his level of fear was during the event. While it does seem bad, and you would think an off duty officer would be more careful as to where and when he fires his weapon, I am not going to condemn him. One person's comment on line was a punch is no excuse to shoot someone in self defense. I say BS. A punch is a violent act of aggression and many people have been killed by just one punch. The bottom line for me is this: It is a sad event that 1 person is dead, a few more are critically injured and lots of shoppers were scared half to death. It feels weird to my wife and I that we walked out of there just minutes before it happened, but we are very happy and thankful that we did.
Special needs doesn't mean a thing sorry. It may explain why a person acts as they do but it doesn't change what happens if they get violent especially if they're off their meds. As for the punch, if the aggressor is getting physical especially if he has seen the other person is armed and even more than that if they have identified themselves as a cop.