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Thousand Oaks Evacuated for Wildfires Days After Deadly Mass Shooting

HeadlineNov 12, 2018

Among the Southern California communities evacuated due to the fires was Thousand Oaks—site of last Wednesday’s mass shooting by a former marine who opened fire at a country music bar, killing 12 people. New details about the shooter, Ian Long, have emerged. A former high school track coach says Long assaulted her and screamed profanities at her. She described Long as a “ticking time bomb” who constantly lost his temper, but her attempts to have Long thrown off the track team were overruled by a senior coach, who said that would compromise Long’s goal of joining the Marines. Sam Tanner, who later served in the U.S. Marine Corps with Ian Long, told The New York Times, “I’m not surprised someone I knew ended up doing a mass shooting. We had another guy recently committed suicide by cops in Texas. Guys struggle. We’ve lost more marines in our peer group to suicide than we ever lost in Afghanistan.” About 17 veterans a day kill themselves. We’ll speak with Suzanne Gordon, author of “Wounds of War,” about this later in the broadcast.

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