12 dead in Thousand Oaks, California, bar shooting; shooter identified as Ian David Long

A tall, hooded gunman dressed in black and covering his face with a bandana opened fire late Wednesday during College Night at a crowded country dance bar in Southern California, killing 12 people, including a sheriff's sergeant.

Ventura County Sheriff Geoff Dean identified the gunman, who later killed himself, as Ian David Long, 28, a Marine veteran, from Newbury Park, a town inside the Thousand Oaks city limits.

The melee erupted at the Borderline Bar and Grill, a country-western dance bar in Thousand Oaks, about 40 miles west of Los Angeles. Hundreds of people fled in terror, including some who used bar stools to break windows and escape.

"It’s a horrific scene in there,” said Dean, who choked up at one point while speaking to reporters in the bar's parking lot. “There’s blood everywhere.”

The sheriff said police have had "several contacts" with Long in recent years. Most notably, police said he was "angry and acting a little irrationally" when a mental health crisis team was called to his home earlier this year to investigate a disturbance. The team concluded Long did not need to be taken into custody, he said.

In addition, Long was listed as the victim in a bar skirmish three years ago, Dean said.

The suspect was armed with a legally purchased Glock 21 .45-caliber handgun designed to hold 10 rounds plus one in the chamber. But the sheriff says the gun had an extended magazine that is illegal in California.

After spraying bullets for almost three minutes, the gunman then went into an office near the front of the bar where he was found dead of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Ian Long, 28, is the gunman who opened fire on Borderline Bar and Grill in Thousand Oaks, California, on Wednesday.

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