Please ensure Javascript is enabled for purposes of website accessibility
A Year Apart, Some Country Music Fans Face 2 Mass Shootings
By admin
Published 6 years ago on
November 9, 2018

Share

THOUSAND OAKS — Borderline Bar and Grill in California had become a safe haven for dozens of survivors of last year’s massacre at a Las Vegas country music festival, a place where they gathered for line dancing and drinks.

They found themselves in a terrifyingly familiar scene Wednesday night, when bullets began flying once again. This time, gunfire claimed a Navy veteran who had lived through the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history a year ago.

“I already didn’t wish it on anybody to begin with for the first time,” Brendan Kelly said Thursday outside his Thousand Oaks home. “The second time around doesn’t get any easier.”

Kelly, a 22-year-old Marine, said he heard “pop, pop” and instantly knew it was gunfire.

“The chills go up your spine. You don’t think it’s real — again,” he said.

The mother of the 27-year-old man killed in the latest attack, Telemachus “Tel” Orfanos, said her son survived Vegas only to die inside Borderline, less than 10 minutes from his home in suburban Los Angeles.

Helping Victims Alongside First Responders

“Here are my words: I want gun control,” said Susan Schmidt-Orfanos, her voice shaking with grief and rage. “I don’t want prayers. I don’t want thoughts.”

“Here are my words: I want gun control. I don’t want prayers. I don’t want thoughts.” — Susan Schmidt-Orfanos, mother of one of the victims

She said she wanted Congress “to pass gun control so no one else has a child that doesn’t come home.”

During Wednesday’s shooting, Kelly said he threw two of his friends to the floor and covered them with his body. Then he got a look at the shooter and the terror unfolding and decided they needed to escape.

Kelly said he dragged one woman out a back emergency exit and then, using his belt, T-shirt and Marine training, applied a tourniquet to his friend’s bleeding arm.

After the shooting was over, Kelly said he and another Marine friend helped victims alongside first responders. Two of his friends were among those killed.

Chandler Gunn, 23, told The Los Angeles Times that a friend who survived the Vegas shooting works at the bar. When Gunn learned about the shooting, he rushed to Borderline.

Gunn said his friend, whose name he didn’t provide, escaped safely out the back.

Photo of Brendan Kelly, a survivor of both the Las Vegas and Thousand Oaks mass shooting
Brendan Kelly speaks with reporters outside his home, as he shows his Route 91 tattoo, Thursday, Nov. 8, 2018, in Thousand Oaks, Calif. Kelly, a Marine who was at Borderline Bar and Grill on Wednesday night, helped people get out after a gunman opened fire at the establishment. Kelly also survived the Las Vegas Route 91 Harvest Festival shooting in 2017. (AP Photo/Ryan Pearson)

Country Music Fans Were the Victims

“There’s people that live a whole lifetime without seeing this, and then there’s people that have seen it twice,” he said.

In social media posts, Molly Mauer said she was at Borderline and also survived Vegas.

“I can’t believe I’m saying this again. I’m alive and home safe,” she said on Facebook.

In Las Vegas and Thousand Oaks, country music fans were the victims. Borderline features country music, and Wednesday was “college night” that drew many young people to the bar. The Last Vegas shooter targeted a crowd of country music fans gathered for the Route 91 Harvest Festival.

Kelly has a large tattoo on his left arm memorializing the Las Vegas shooting, which killed 58 people. On his other arm Thursday, he still had his wristband from the California bar.

When the Las Vegas gunman opened fire from a 32nd-floor hotel room, Kelly said he threw a friend to the ground before helping get her out of the area and into a room. Armed with a knife in case an attacker came in, he hunkered down and waited with 40 other people for four hours.

Living Through Vegas Changed His Life

He said living through Vegas changed his life. He doesn’t know how a second mass shooting will affect him down the road.

“I know that, being a religious person, that God is never going to give me anything more than I can handle. I’m here for a reason.” — Brendan Kelly, victim

“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 overanalyzing people, trying to figure out if something were to go down, ‘What would I do?'”

Kelly said Borderline had become a safe haven for dozens of Vegas survivors: “It is our home.”

A few weeks after the Vegas shooting, the bar held a benefit concert for five people from the area who were killed, and now-eerie social media posts show a number of survivors holding up a “Route 91” sign inside the bar at a six-month anniversary event.

Kelly said he’ll be looking to God for comfort in the coming weeks and months.

“I know that, being a religious person, that God is never going to give me anything more than I can handle,” he said. “I’m here for a reason.”

DON'T MISS

Wired Wednesday: CEMEX’s New Mining Plan for the San Joaquin River

DON'T MISS

Trump Fires NSC Officials a Day After Far-Right Activist Raises Concerns to Him

DON'T MISS

China Halts Approvals for New US Investment Projects

DON'T MISS

Measles Spreads to Central Texas; 5 States Have Active Outbreaks

DON'T MISS

Trump Tariff Fears Erase $2 Trillion From US Stocks

DON'T MISS

Startup Offers Controversial Microplastic Blood Cleansing Treatment

DON'T MISS

Senate Confirms Mehmet Oz to Take Lead of Medicare and Medicaid Agency

DON'T MISS

First California EV Mandates Hit Automakers This Year. Most Are Not Even Close

DON'T MISS

Pence Will Receive the Profile in Courage Award From the JFK Library for His Actions on Jan. 6

DON'T MISS

Politics Turns Ugly for a Conservative Running for Fresno State Student Body President

UP NEXT

Startup Offers Controversial Microplastic Blood Cleansing Treatment

UP NEXT

Pence Will Receive the Profile in Courage Award From the JFK Library for His Actions on Jan. 6

UP NEXT

Flores Homers, Matos and Wade Also Go Deep to Help Giants Cap Sweep of Astros

UP NEXT

Trump Proposes Tax Deduction for Auto Loan Interest on US-Made Cars

UP NEXT

Western US Sees Sharp Increase in Extreme Weather Impact

UP NEXT

7-Year-Old Girl Was Killed by a Falling Boulder at a Lake Tahoe Ski Resort

UP NEXT

Elon Musk Reclaims Top Spot on Forbes’ Billionaires List

UP NEXT

Lakers Hold Off Rockets With 6 3-Pointers Apiece From Dorian Finney-Smith, Gabe Vincent

UP NEXT

Athletics Bat Boy Stewart Thalblum Takes Down Drone in Left Field

UP NEXT

NFL Postpones Tush Push Decision but Passes Other Rule Changes, AP Source Says

Measles Spreads to Central Texas; 5 States Have Active Outbreaks

2 hours ago

Trump Tariff Fears Erase $2 Trillion From US Stocks

2 hours ago

Startup Offers Controversial Microplastic Blood Cleansing Treatment

2 hours ago

Senate Confirms Mehmet Oz to Take Lead of Medicare and Medicaid Agency

4 hours ago

First California EV Mandates Hit Automakers This Year. Most Are Not Even Close

5 hours ago

Pence Will Receive the Profile in Courage Award From the JFK Library for His Actions on Jan. 6

5 hours ago

Politics Turns Ugly for a Conservative Running for Fresno State Student Body President

6 hours ago

Pentagon’s Watchdog to Review Hegseth’s Use of Signal App to Convey Plans for Houthi Strike

6 hours ago

President Trump’s Tariffs Could Be the Political Tipping Point

7 hours ago

Order That Kept Water in the Kern River Reversed by 5th District Court of Appeal

7 hours ago

Wired Wednesday: CEMEX’s New Mining Plan for the San Joaquin River

GV Wire’s Edward Smith talks with KMPH Fox 26 “Great Day” anchor Christina Rodriguez about the possibility of CEMEX digging a 600-foot hole ...

50 minutes ago

50 minutes ago

Wired Wednesday: CEMEX’s New Mining Plan for the San Joaquin River

President Donald Trump speaks during an event to announce new tariffs in the Rose Garden at the White House, Wednesday, April 2, 2025, in Washington. (AP/Mark Schiefelbein)
59 minutes ago

Trump Fires NSC Officials a Day After Far-Right Activist Raises Concerns to Him

2 hours ago

China Halts Approvals for New US Investment Projects

2 hours ago

Measles Spreads to Central Texas; 5 States Have Active Outbreaks

2 hours ago

Trump Tariff Fears Erase $2 Trillion From US Stocks

2 hours ago

Startup Offers Controversial Microplastic Blood Cleansing Treatment

Dr. Mehmet Oz, President Donald Trump's pick to lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, seated right, gives a thumbs-up alongside his wife Lisa Oz, seated left, with friends and family after he testified at his confirmation hearing before the Senate Finance Committee, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Friday, March 14, 2025. (AP/Ben Curtis)
4 hours ago

Senate Confirms Mehmet Oz to Take Lead of Medicare and Medicaid Agency

5 hours ago

First California EV Mandates Hit Automakers This Year. Most Are Not Even Close

Help continue the work that gets you the news that matters most.

Search

Send this to a friend