When Cody Coffman left home Wednesday night, his dad cautioned him not to drink and drive. But what unfolded after he headed out for the Borderline Bar & Grill never crossed his father’s mind.
Coffman, 22, was one of 12 people shot to death in the latest mass shooting in America. A lone gunman opened fire late Wednesday night with a .45-caliber handgun in the packed bar in Thousand Oaks, California, on what was billed as “college night.”
“I talked to him last night before he headed out the door. The first thing I said was, ‘Don’t drink and drive.’ The last thing I said was, ‘Son, I love you,'” Coffman’s father, Jason Coffman, told reporters Thursday.
Not all of the 12 victims have been publicly identified. Here is what we know so far about the lives of those killed.
Jason Coffman said his son was about to join the Army and had been talking to recruits and finishing up his paperwork to enlist.
“My son was on his way to fulfilling his dream of serving his country,” Jason Coffman said. “There are so many people that he touched that are going to be as heartbroken as me.”
“I am speechless and heartbroken,” he added. “I cannot believe that it’s happened to my family.”
He said he was bracing for more heartache when he tells Cody’s siblings, Joshua, 8, Dominick, 6, and Chase, 8, that their big brother is dead. Jason Coffman said he has a daughter, Aurora, on the way and that Cody was excited about her pending birth.
“I just want him to know that he is going to be missed,” Jason Coffman said of his oldest child in between tears.
Coffman said Cody was a big baseball fan and that he coached him from Little League through high school. He said Cody had just wrapped up a season of being an umpire in a youth baseball league.
Asked if he had anything to say about the suspected gunman, who authorities believe killed himself in the massacre, Coffman would only say, “I feel sorry for his parents.”
Sgt. Ron Helus, a 29-year veteran of the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department was killed in the line of duty, Sheriff Geoff Dean said. He was one of the first on the scene and was shot multiple times when he entered the bar, authorities said.
Helus, 54, who is survived by his wife and son, was looking to retire soon, the sheriff’s office said. Instead, he made “the ultimate sacrifice,” Dean said.
When the report of the shooting came in, the sheriff said Helus was speaking with his wife on the phone.
“Hey, I got to go handle a call, I love you,” Helus told his wife, according to Dean.
“He was a great man,” Capt. Garo Kuredjian, a spokesman for the Ventura County Sheriff’s Office, told ABC’s “Good Morning America” Thursday. “He was a cop’s cop, and we miss him. We miss him already and we’re in mourning as an agency. We’re in mourning as a community.”
Pepperdine University student Alaina Housley was killed in the shooting. She was the niece of Adam Housley and “Sister, Sister” actress Tamera Mowry-Housley.
“Our hearts are broken,” Adam Housley and Tamera Mowry-Housley said in a statement. “Alaina was an incredible young woman with so much life ahead of her and we are devastated that her life was cut short in this manner.”
“My sweet, sweet Alaina. My heart breaks. I’m still in disbelief,” Mowry-Housley wrote on Instagram. “It’s not fair how you were taken and how soon you were taken from us. I was blessed to know you ever since you were 5. You stole my heart.”
“We offer our deepest condolences to the Housley family and ask that our community join us in keeping Alaina’s family, friends, and loved ones in their prayers during this incredibly difficult time,” Pepperdine University added in a statement.
Telemachus Orfanos survived last year’s mass shooting in Las Vegas, but was killed Wednesday night in the Thousand Oaks bar, his mother said.
“My son was in Las Vegas with a lot of his friends and he came home. He didn’t come home last night,” Susan Orfanos told ABC Los Angeles station KABC-TV.
“I don’t want prayers. I don’t want thoughts,” she pleaded emphatically. “I want gun control. And I hope to God nobody sends me anymore prayers. I want gun control. No more guns.”
Dan Manrique, was a Marine Corps veteran who served as a radio operator in the 2nd Combat Engineer Battalion, 2nd Marine Division and was deployed to the Middle East in 2007 with the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit, Jacklyn Pieper, athletic director of Team Red White & Blue, told ABC News.
Manrique also served as a captain for the Ventura County chapter of Team Red White & Blue since 2014, Pieper said. Team Red White & Blue aims to “enrich the lives of America’s veterans by connecting them to their community through physical and social activity,” according to its website.
The avid Dodgers fan most recently worked as a program manager of a veteran representative payee program for a Los Angeles-based nonprofit, Pieper said.
Justin Meek, 23, was a victim of the massacre, according to Thousand Oaks’ California Lutheran University, from which he had recently graduated.
“Meek heroically saved lives” during the shooting, the university said.
“Cal Lutheran wraps its arms around the Meek family and other families, and around every member of this community,” the university said.
ABC News’ Stephanie Wash contributed reporting
