Breaking down the In-N-Out massacre, a Las Vegas line-of-duty death, and a 200-round felony stop in Houston — from a former OIS investigator’s chair.
Seven incidents this week, a mass shooting stopped by an off-duty trooper and an armed citizen. A parolee who turned and pointed at a cop in a riverbed. A masked man who ambushed and murdered a Las Vegas officer answering a call. Nine cops in Houston who fired more than a hundred rounds and grazed the guy. I spent twenty years doing this work and I investigated shootings just like these, so I’m going to show you what I see that most people scroll right past.
Watch the full breakdown above. The written version of each incident is below — facts first, then what actually matters about how it went down.
Twin Falls, Idaho — The In-N-Out Massacre (August 1)
A 24-year-old gunman, Chad Williams, opened fire at the In-N-Out in Twin Falls on August 1. He started at the drive-thru window, killing Ashley Garibay, then shot Christopher Claunch dead in his vehicle.
What kept this from being far worse was two men with guns. An off-duty Idaho State Police trooper was inside the restaurant. He vaulted the counter, evacuated a crew of teenage employees, and traded fire with the shooter. Outside, armed citizen Jordan Salinas engaged him too. A former Twin Falls officer, Austin James Scott, ran toward the gunfire and was shot for it.
The gunman’s handgun jammed. He went back to his car for a rifle and kept going — firing into cars stopped at a red light and into two Teslas at a charging station, killing Dale Schultz. Final count: three dead, seven wounded. Williams ended it with a self-inflicted gunshot. The trooper and Salinas were not hit.
This is what “running toward the sound of gunfire” actually looks like. The trooper’s tactics were clean — he cleared the room, got those kids out, and put rounds on the threat. Take the good guys with guns out of this one and you’re counting a lot more bodies. Ask yourself how this ends in a state where nobody inside is armed.
San Diego, California — Western Division Foot Pursuit (June 30)
San Diego PD contacted a man during a homeless-encampment abatement operation. He gave a fake name, but officers knew him — a parolee at large with a no-bail warrant and a history of resisting. He ran.
The pursuit went through the riverbeds down by Friars Road. A Taser deployment failed. Near the Pacific Highway overpass, the suspect stopped, turned, and pointed what appeared to be a gun at an officer. The officer fired. The suspect was not struck, kept running, and was taken into custody a short time later. No firearm was recovered, and he was charged with felony obstruction.
No gun in hand afterward does not make it a bad shooting. When a fleeing felon spins and points something at your face, you don’t get to slowly identify the object first. You don’t stand there and confirm the make and model. You make the call so you go home. This one clears.
Las Vegas, Nevada — Line-of-Duty Death (August 4)
This is the ugly one.
On August 4, LVMPD got a 911 call about a masked man waving a handgun near a business on East Tropicana. A department drone found him first and even captured him drawing the pistol with an extended magazine.
Officer Austin Abdelnabi, 30 — a Marine Corps veteran with the department since 2023, married eight years — arrived and was ambushed. The suspect, 21-year-old Angel Lucas Lindsey, charged and opened fire before Abdelnabi could clear his vehicle, striking him eight times. Abdelnabi never got a shot off. His partner, Officer Enrique Molinette, returned fire and hit the suspect, who then turned the gun on himself. Both the officer and the suspect died.
Lindsey was carrying a CZ P-10, fired 15 rounds, and had two more loaded magazines on him — 46 additional rounds. There is no criticism to give here. A coward murdered a police officer who was answering a call for help. The one thing worth noting is the drone: even with an officer down, investigators had the entire sequence from the air. That technology is worth keeping.
Rest easy, Officer Abdelnabi.
Houston, Texas — Nine Officers, 200+ Rounds (July 6)
Houston, July 6, around 7:30 p.m. An off-duty officer flagged a suspicious vehicle, and on-duty units tried a stop. The driver — accused of assaulting his mother and taking her car — refused commands for an extended time.
On the approach, officers say he popped the driver’s door and extended his arm backward in a shooting position. Nine officers fired. By my count they put somewhere north of two hundred rounds downrange, and the suspect walked away with a graze wound. No gun was recovered.
Is it a legal shooting? Yes. You cannot open a door and simulate a pistol at officers on a felony stop and expect anything else to happen. But the tactics are the lesson here. A ballistic shield is not for looking squared-away on the approach — it is for the moment the rounds start. The second shots went off, the stack peeled the wrong direction, tripped over each other, and dropped the shield in the dirt. Good cover was right there on the vehicle. Before every stop, ask the question: if this goes sideways, where am I going?
Louisville, Kentucky — Downtown Burglary Foot Pursuit (July 26)
Midnight on July 26, Louisville Metro answered an active break-in call downtown near Fifth and York. Two suspects had broken into a vacant apartment — one police had hit with a search warrant days earlier, recovering narcotics, 15 firearms, and machine-gun conversion devices.
Officers set a perimeter and did it right. No rushing. No victims inside. Wait for the K-9. When the suspects ran, one went down without incident. The other, O’Mauri Downs, ran with a gun in his hand and refused commands to drop it. Officers held their fire long enough to clearly identify the weapon before the lieutenant on scene shot him. Downs survived, non-life-threatening, and went to jail.
Clean shooting. A fleeing felon with a gun in his hand, and they still gave him seconds to comply. The only wrinkle is that the lieutenant’s body camera wasn’t on. It won’t change the outcome of this one — but in this era, turn the camera on.
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma — Man With a Gun (June 23)
Oklahoma City, June 23, just before 7 p.m. Officers had already been to the 6600 block of Northwest 10th earlier that day for the same man causing a disturbance. This time the call was a man firing a gun.
The first officer on scene located him armed with a handgun. He ignored commands, walked around an apartment building, then turned and pointed the gun at her. She fired and missed; the backdrop behind him was an unoccupied storm shelter. The suspect, Demetrius Wine, ran into his apartment. Roughly ninety minutes later, officers took him without further gunfire using a 40mm less-lethal round and a Taser. He was booked for pointing a firearm, felon in possession, and drugs.
Easy call. He had already fired a gun, and he pointed it at an officer. You don’t get to wait to be shot at.
Vallejo, California — Fatal Carjacking Stop (July 20)
Vallejo, July 20. A 911 caller reported an armed carjacking — a man pulled a rifle on him and took his car, his wallet, everything. Officers found the gray Honda and boxed it in on a felony stop. According to the department, the driver immediately opened fire.
This is where the veterans earned it. They did not rush a man who had already shot at them just because he was hit and yelling — no victim, no hostage, no reason to close distance. They called for a shield, stacked up, and let time work for them. When the suspect tried to drive off, two officers fired and ended it. He died at the scene.
The rifle was a ghost gun with no serial number, and its high-capacity magazine still held 21 live rounds. Open-and-shut. You shoot at police during a carjacking stop, you get shot back.
That’s the week. Seven shootings, and in most of them the officers did the job the way it’s supposed to be done. New breakdowns every Saturday.
