COLLEGE SCENE

The Borderline is popular with university students and on Wednesday night hosted College Country Night. California Lutheran University, located about 5 miles from the bar, canceled classes on Thursday while Pepperdine University, about 20 miles away, planned a prayer service.

Bar patron Cole Knapp, 19, told Reuters he saw the gunman walk in and stop at the counter, apparently paying a cover charge. Then Knapp heard gunfire and saw a young woman at the counter shot repeatedly.

"It took a couple of seconds for people to realize what was going on and once that happened it was just utter chaos," he said.

Knapp said he first helped people hide behind a pool table and then fled to the bar's outdoor smoking patio, where people were unaware of the shooting.

Once outside, Knapp said, he and a friend helped carry a gunshot victim to an ambulance.

"I'm just reeling, riding on adrenaline right now," he said.

"It's just kind of unbelievable that somebody would want to come to a place I care about and hurt people that I care about."

Thousand Oaks, with a population of about 127,000, is a leafy, sprawling suburb named the third safest city in the United States for 2018 by Niche, a company that researches cities' schools, income, real estate, crime and other livability factors.

"I've learned it doesn't matter what community you're in," Dean told reporters when asked if he was surprised this happened in Thousand Oaks. "It doesn’t matter how safe your community is.

It can happen anywhere."

One man, Jason Coffman, told reporters that his son, Cody, 22, was among the dead. "This is going to be an absolutely heart-wrenching time for me and my family," Coffman said. "This is a heart that I will never get back."

Names of the victims were not immediately made public and about 60 people were gathered at a teen center in Thousand Oaks waiting to learn if their loved ones were among the dead. After families were briefed, one man sat outside on the curb sobbing loudly.