SURVIVING BORDERLINE Focusing on the future

Part three of a three-part series



IMPOSSIBLE TO COMPREHEND—Taylor Von Molt and Justin Veditz visit the makeshift memorial for the 12 lives lost at Borderline Bar and Grill in Thousand Oaks. The couple were among the ones who made it out alive. After helping treat a victim with a gunshot wound, Veditz now wants to become a firefighter. RICHARD GILLARD/Acorn Newspapers

IMPOSSIBLE TO COMPREHEND—Taylor Von Molt and Justin Veditz visit the makeshift memorial for the 12 lives lost at Borderline Bar and Grill in Thousand Oaks. The couple were among the ones who made it out alive. After helping treat a victim with a gunshot wound, Veditz now wants to become a firefighter. RICHARD GILLARD/Acorn Newspapers

Since escaping the massacre at the Borderline Bar and Grill on Nov. 7, Taylor Von Molt has a new motto: “We get to.”

The 21-year-old, who works as a promoter for the country western bar, has spent the past four months recovering from the torn tendons she suffered in her arm after being trampled in the frenzied exodus from the gunfire.

When she struggles with being depressed, she thinks about the friends whose lives were cut short, and she remembers to be grateful.

“We get to be stuck in traffic. We get to go to school. We get to have bad days,” the Simi Valley resident said. “Some of our friends don’t get to. Our way of getting through it is ‘We get to.’”

Tending to the wounded

Von Molt was dancing with her boyfriend, Justin Veditz, when the shooting started.

The couple became separated in the chaos.

Veditz, 26, escaped through the kitchen, then realized Von Molt wasn’t with him.

REMEMBERING FRIENDS—Borderline shooting survivors Taylor Von Molt and Justin Veditz visit the Borderline memorial March 17. Von Molt said victims like Sgt. Ron Helus, Sean Adler, Justin Meek and Telemachus Orfanos should be remembered as heroes.“They tried to protect us so we could live another day.” RICHARD GILLARD/Acorn Newspapers

REMEMBERING FRIENDS—Borderline shooting survivors Taylor Von Molt and Justin Veditz visit the Borderline memorial March 17. Von Molt said victims like Sgt. Ron Helus, Sean Adler, Justin Meek and Telemachus Orfanos should be remembered as heroes.“They tried to protect us so we could live another day.” RICHARD GILLARD/Acorn Newspapers

As he searched for her in the parking lot, he encountered a friend he knew from the gym who’d been shot in the upper-left torso.

A trained EMT, Veditz helped carry Tim Munson, then 18, to safety. He was inspecting the young man’s wounds when Sgt. Ron Helus approached.

Veditz told Helus the shooter was inside with hostages. The Ventura County sheriff’s deputy continued to the building as Veditz took off his shirt to use as a bandage to apply pressure to the bullet wound.

The young man Veditz treated was the only person who suffered a direct gunshot that evening and survived.

Veditz, who works as a construction project manager, said the experience has inspired him to become a firefighter. The Thousand Oaks resident is scheduled to take the written test for the Ventura County Fire Department at the end of the month.

“This situation was terrible, but it hasn’t made me super depressed. It motivated me,” he said. “Some days are harder than others, don’t get me wrong, but I’ve just always had this strong feeling like I’m supposed to help others.”

 

 

Veditz isn’t the only survivor determined to spend the rest of his life helping people.

Alex Chatoff was one of more than 30 Cal Lutheran University students at Borderline that night. The 21-year-old escaped through a shattered window near the DJ booth.

The criminal justice major said the experience has reinforced his decision to pursue a career in law enforcement.

“Unfortunately, there’s evil people in this world,” he said. “I want to spend my life keeping people safe.”

Birthday, interrupted

Brooke Mueller, 32, hadn’t been to Borderline in eight years when she showed up on Nov. 7 to celebrate her younger sister’s birthday.

Alexa Brevig turned 18 that day, making her one of the youngest survivors.

Mueller and Brevig were standing between the bar and the windows on the north side of the building when shots rang out.

A horde of people charged toward the sisters, who were standing in one of the few areas hidden from the gunman’s view. The two women were knocked to the floor as patrons dove all around them. Brevig fell in front of Mueller, who pulled her sister close to her.

“I just kept telling her, ‘I’m sorry,’” Mueller said.

She said time began to move in slow motion. She focused on their exit route: a broken window pane. They both jumped outside into the darkness.

Mueller injured her hip and spine as she jumped through the window and landed outside. The sound of gunfire continued as she called 911.

She got a busy signal. Then she called her mom.

She reconnected with her sister, as well as her brother, Devin, 23, in the parking lot, then began the search for their friends, some of whom had sought shelter in the attic of the bar.

As FBI and SWAT officers arrived, those who’d escaped huddled together in the twilight. At one point, Mueller looked down and realized another woman was holding her hand.

“I thought that was such a beautiful side of humanity, too—in a moment of tragedy how humans can come together,” she said.

Fresh from Texas

Cassidy Addison and Hannah Michalak, both 23, were sitting at a table near the entrance when the shooting started.

Addison is a Newbury Park High School graduate who attended College Night nearly every week for two years until she moved to Texas in July 2018. Michalak lives in Camarillo.

Nov. 7 marked Addison’s first trip home since moving. She and Michalak drove straight to the bar from LAX and arrived around 9:20 p.m. Instead of hanging out on the dance floor like usual, the friends socialized at a table near the front door.

Before long, they saw a familiar face walk through the door. Both Michalak and Chatoff had encountered the man wearing camouflage at Borderline during the previous week’s Halloween party.

But on Nov. 7, he was dressed all in black.

“I looked over my shoulder and I made eye contact with the shooter,” said Michalak, who witnessed three people get killed before a friend told her to run.

Michalak escaped through the kitchen’s loading dock; Addison did the same.

Addison injured her knee as she fled. She ran in pain with a group of strangers to a nearby apartment complex and knocked on a random door, screaming about a shooting at Borderline and begging to be let in.

A good Samaritan offered them shelter.

“Thank God they let us in,” Addison said. “My mom was the first person I called.”

New life

When the shooter threw a smoke bomb after the initial volley of gunfire, 20-year-old Makena Cornelison took advantage of the pause and ran and hid with others in the bathroom inside the kitchen.

The music on the dance floor stopped during the shooting, but the radio used by kitchen staff continued to play.

“We were quietly singing along,” she said.

The people hiding in the kitchen bathroom sheltered in place for the entirety of the shooting, which Cornelison said lasted around eight to 10 minutes. They continued to hide after the gunfire stopped, unsure if the coast was clear.

“We just heard footsteps,” Cornelison said. “We didn’t know if it was the shooter or not. Then we heard the radio chatter.”

After an hour in hiding, she said, SWAT kicked down the door and escorted them to safety.

Cornelison learned she was pregnant shortly after the tragedy; she is due to give birth this summer. She said the baby was an unexpected answer to something she had prayed about to get through the trauma.

“I remember praying, ‘Please God, give me something to look forward to,’” she said. “Two weeks later, I found out I was pregnant.”

The father, Ben Campbell, also survived the shooting.

They decided to name the child Weston James.

“We wanted him to have a strong country name,” she said.

New tradition

Four months after the shooting, there’s a new tradition.

The Canyon in Agoura hosts Borderline night every Wednesday. Survivor Taylor Young said it doesn’t replace what they lost, but it gives them a chance to dance and be together.

“We have just got to pick our feet up and move forward,” she said. “That’s why we have The Canyon.”

A group of about five women who survived together that night created a new Monday night tradition, too.

They spent the past few months getting together at Young’s Moorpark townhome to watch “The Bachelor.”

“That’s our therapy,” Michalak said.

Von Molt said that survivors face ups and downs every day, but they stay focused on the future in honor of the 12 lives that were stolen that night. She said they dance for those who no longer can.

“Some days we feel good. Some days we just want to lay in bed and be sad,” she said. “The biggest take-away is we get to. We get to live another day. We should live for those who can’t. They would want us to go dancing. They would want us to enjoy life. I know that’s what they would want.”