MALACAÑANG on Friday sent its condolences and prayers to the family of a teenage Filipino-American and other victims who died in a mass shooting in Southern California on Thursday.
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Alaina Housley, a Pepperdine University freshman, was among those killed in the mass shooting at the Borderline bar in Thousand Oaks, California. AP PHOTO[/caption]
The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) confirmed that Alaina Punzalan Housley, an 18-year-old college freshman, was among at least 12 people killed when a gunman opened fire inside the Borderline Bar and Grill in Thousand Oaks, California.
Alaina was just 18, a promising student at Pepperdine University with plans to study law, her family said.
Adam Housley, a former Fox News correspondent, and Tamera Mowry-Housley, an actress known for the 1990s TV series “Sister Sister,” said their niece was killed at the bar where she had gone line dancing with friends.
“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,” the couple said in a statement.
Alaina was bright, popular and well-loved, a student who had a 4.5 grade-point average since junior high school and earned college scholarships, said her grandfather, Art Housley.
She played soccer and tennis all through high school, studied piano and violin, and sang, he said.
Palace spokesman Salvador Panelo said the Philippine Consulate General in Los Angeles would continue to monitor developments and coordinate with authorities and leaders of the Filipino-American community to check whether there were Filipinos among the wounded.
Panelo said 25,879 Filipinos and Filipino-Americans were living in Ventura County, which encompasses Thousand Oaks.
Marine veteran
Ventura Counrty police said Ian David Long, a 28-year-old US Marine Corps combat veteran, opened fire in the crowded Borderline Bar and Grill country music bar in California, killing 12 people including a police officer who rushed in and exchanged shots with the gunman.
Terrified patrons, many of whom were college students, scrambled for the exits after the gunman started shooting people with a handgun at about 11:20 pm on Wednesday.
“They ran out of the back doors, they broke windows, they went through windows. They hid up in the attic, they hid in the bathroom,” Ventura County Sheriff Geoff Dean said.
The assailant, a troubled former machine gunner who served a tour in Afghanistan, died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Dean told reporters that Long shot an unarmed security guard who was standing outside the bar before entering and opening fire at random inside.
Twenty-three people were injured — some from “jumping out of windows, diving under tables,” Dean said — and treated at area hospitals.
A year ago, 58 people were shot dead at a country music festival in Las Vegas, the worst mass shooting in modern US history, and several of the patrons in the California bar had also been at the Nevada concert.
“I can’t believe I’m saying this again,” Molly Maurer posted on Facebook. “I’m alive and I’m home safe.
According to the Pentagon, Long served in the Marine Corps from August 2008 to March 2013.
He attained the rank of corporal and saw combat while deployed in Afghanistan from November 2010 to June 2011.
“He had perfect form,” bar patron Teylor Whittler told Fox News. “He looked like he knew what he was doing.”
Police on Thursday were searching Long’s house in Newbury Park, near Thousand Oaks, where he reportedly lived with his mother.
Long was found dead by police in an office at the bar and is believed to have shot himself, Dean said.
AND AFP