TWIN FALLS, Idaho — A bystander armed with a handgun opened fire on a gunman rampaging through the parking lot of a crowded In-N-Out restaurant here Saturday, exchanging shots with the attacker in a confrontation that witnesses say may have saved lives by giving diners and employees precious seconds to escape.
When the shooting stopped, three people were dead and seven wounded, according to police. The gunman, who authorities believe was armed with an AR-style rifle, is thought to have taken his own life, officials said.
The intervention, captured in harrowing video recorded from a nearby car, unfolded in the span of a few chaotic minutes at the drive-thru of the fast-food restaurant in this southern Idaho city. The footage shows a man with a pistol trading fire with the rifle-carrying shooter as panicked customers scrambled for cover.
'He Started Firing Back'
Lane Koehn, a 34-year-old who recorded the scene from his car while stopped at a traffic light, said he first noticed a man emerge from the drive-thru carrying an AR-style rifle. Moments later, a second man — the armed citizen — began firing at the shooter with a handgun.
“He started firing back,” Koehn said in an interview, describing the exchange that he said drew the gunman's attention away from the restaurant's entrance.
The distraction, Koehn said, may have given diners and workers inside the crowded burger joint the opening they needed to get away. He then saw a woman in an In-N-Out uniform bleeding from the chest being dragged across the parking lot by another employee. Koehn, the armed citizen and a co-worker stayed with the wounded woman until paramedics arrived.
“She was pretty bad off, but I don't know. I hope she made it,” Koehn told KPTV, a local television station.
Search for a Motive
Police have not yet identified the deceased shooter or disclosed a possible motive for the attack, which sent shock waves through this agricultural community of roughly 55,000 people on the Snake River. Authorities said the gunman is believed to have killed himself after the exchange of fire.
The identities of the victims — among them the wounded In-N-Out employee — have not been released pending notification of family members. The conditions of the seven wounded were not immediately available.
The shooting is the latest to roil an American fast-food restaurant, a setting once regarded as routine and unremarkable, and it immediately reignited the national debate over gun violence and the role of armed civilians in mass-shooting events.
For the patrons and workers who lived through the afternoon at the Twin Falls In-N-Out, the actions of a single armed stranger — and the seconds he bought them — may have made the difference between life and death.
