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 outside a family reunification center in Thousand Oaks.
Authorities have yet to release the names of those killed in the rampage allegedly committed by former U.S. Marine Ian David Long. But Coffman was the first parent to confirm he lost his son in the rampage.
“There’s many more to come, but for me, this is a heart that I’ll never get back,” said the tearful father as he stood next to his father-in-law Mike Johnston. “My life has changed now forever.”
He 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.”
He said he has yet to tell 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 cannot believe that this happened to my family,” he said. “I don’t know what to say to other people that are going through the same situation as I am. I’m sorry for their loss.”
He said his son 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.
“He was my fishing buddy,” Jason Coffman said of his son.
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.”
The Ventura County Medical Examiner’s Office is working to identify all the victims.
The only other victim who has been identified is Sgt. Ron Helus, a 29-year veteran of the Ventura County Sheriff’s Office. Helus was one of the first deputies to arrive on the scene and rushed into the bar to confront the gunman, officials said.
Helus was shot multiple times in a gun battle with the shooter, officials said.
Prior to getting the call to respond to the shooting, Helus was speaking with his wife on the phone, said Ventura County Sheriff Geoff Dean.
“Hey, I got to go handle a call, I love you,” Helus told his wife, according to Dean.
Helus is also survived by a son.
“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.”
A vigil for the victims is scheduled to take place Thursday evening Thousand Oaks.
