Twin Falls Embraces Man Who Confronted Idaho In-N-Out Shooting

Jordan Salinas did not notice the new sign on the counter at his favorite coffee shop until a barista pointed it out.

Help show your support, the sign read, by contributing to a gift card for Mr. Salinas’s “bravery and selfless act during the recent tragic event.”

Customers had already pooled $630, the barista noted.

Mr. Salinas, 35, with long hair tucked under a cap and a pistol holstered on his hip, appeared to be taken aback. It didn’t feel right. The donations, the praise, the handshakes. All of it was to thank Mr. Salinas for something he wished had never happened.

He pulled out his wallet and paid for his coffee.

A Tragedy’s Silver Lining

A complex mix of emotions has gripped Twin Falls, Idaho, in the days since a 24-year-old man with a rifle killed three people and wounded seven more at a brand-new In-N-Out Burger restaurant. This agricultural community — known for its waterways, scenic trails and a failed Evel Knievel stunt in the 1970s — remains in mourning for the dead and injured. Yet there is a shared sentiment that the midday shooting at a crowded strip mall could have been even worse.

The community has held fund-raisers for the families of the dead — Christopher Claunch, 59; Ashley Garibay, 23; and Dale Schultz, 66 — as well as for the injured, some of whom have severe injuries. A candlelight vigil drew hundreds and featured an impromptu rendition of “Amazing Grace.” The parking lot of the temporarily closed fast food restaurant is dotted with dozens of flowers.

Amid this outpour of support, and the Twin Falls Police Department’s pledge to fully investigate, so much about the attack remains cloaked in mystery. The police said the family of the gunman, Chad Williams, is cooperating with investigators. Some local residents, lacking even a hunch about a motive for the shooting, have turned their attention to what they consider the tragedy’s silver lining: that Mr. Salinas and another man had drawn their own guns and fired at Mr. Williams, slowing his rampage and forcing him to retreat before he killed himself.

Mr. Williams grew up in Waddell, Ariz., and eventually moved to Twin Falls. Records show he attended the College of Southern Idaho for at least a year and served as a student senator until he was impeached by his colleagues in February 2023 after missing several of the group’s meetings. Little more is publicly known about Mr. Williams, who kept a fairly anonymous profile.

Mr. Salinas had also been living a largely anonymous life, taking care of his disabled older brother in a small home surrounded by farmland just outside Twin Falls. Overnight, he went “from obscurity to being like a neon sign,” as he put it this week.

Cars now p*** him and honk in approval. Strangers hug him. In line for coffee at Java on Blue Lakes Boulevard, a stranger approached and asked if he could take a picture beside him. “I don’t know if this is appropriate,” the man said, pulling out his phone.

‘Get Down!’

Mr. Salinas and his girlfriend had been on their way to visit a friend’s horses on Aug. 1, when they decided to grab a burger at the new In-N-Out, an outpost of the California chain that had opened a week earlier.

Pulling into a neighboring lot, they saw people sprinting from the restaurant. “Was there a fire?” Mr. Salinas wondered. Then he heard the crack of a rifle. Then more. Mr. Salinas bolted toward the sound without a word to his girlfriend.

He took cover behind an In-N-Out sign and then moved to another, spotting Mr. Williams, a young man with black hair, dressed in a black shirt. Mr. Salinas recalled seeing the gunman raise his rifle and fire at cars at a stoplight.

Mr. Salinas had trained for this moment for years, studying videos of drills online in case he ever had to protect his brother and others from a potential m*** shooting. He had been shooting guns for even longer — since he was in grade school, he said, if not before. Back then he shot at a broken television in the backyard. Over the years, he had drawn his gun only at targets.

He had long wondered about how he would react to an active shooter. Now, he was looking down his sight at another man.

He raised his handgun.

Inside the In-N-Out, Sydney Tucker, 21, cowered on the restaurant’s floor. Moments earlier, she and her 16-year-old brother had been about to eat their double-double burgers. Then they heard shouts — “get down!” — and they dropped to the floor. Taking cover under the table, they heard gunfire. Ms. Tucker recalled scanning the scene and spotting a young girl, maybe only 5 years old, who appeared clueless to the chaos. Her parents were imploring her to stop moving, Ms. Tucker said.

The gunshots continued. They began to sound closer — and louder. She and her brother saw a side door, and decided to run for it. As they left, she spotted a car in the restaurant’s drive-through with shattered windows.

A Gunman’s Flinch

Mr. Salinas’s years of training took over. Video captured by a bystander shows him locked in the moment — his knees bent slightly, arms extended straight, suppressor attached to the barrel. His gun, a 5.7x28mm pistol, commonly called a “five-seven,” is known for its minimal recoil.

He was so focused that there are some details he recalled only days later when he returned to the scene for the first time. But he remembered this: He saw the gunman flinch.

Mr. Salinas thought it was possible that one of his own bullets had struck or grazed the shooter. But he knows it is also possible that the gunman was simply reacting to the sound of return fire. Either way, Mr. Salinas said, the gunfire changed the shooter’s demeanor. He seemed to be panicking.

“Something outside of what he had anticipated was now unfolding,” Mr. Salinas said in an interview. “As I was watching him and taking shots at him, I could tell that he didn’t know where I was.”

The gunman ran toward the Twin Falls Visitor Center at the edge of the Snake River Canyon, usually a gathering point for sightseers and BASE jumpers preparing to parachute off the city’s postcard-perfect bridge. Mr. Salinas moved behind a grouping of bushes, a hiding place where he had a better angle. He fired again, but Mr. Williams disappeared behind some Teslas.

Soon, Mr. Salinas heard police sirens and saw blue lights. He holstered his gun and helped direct officers toward where he last saw the shooter. He then walked back toward the In-N-Out and saw someone pulling a wounded employee from the restaurant.

The Twin Falls police chief later praised Mr. Salinas and another man who returned fire, an off-duty Idaho state trooper who has yet to be identified. The chief said the men had helped drive the gunman away and prevented more carnage. Others also praised their actions.

“There were a lot of heroes that day,” Asher Ridenour, an In-N-Out employee who was working during the shooting, said by text, “including all of the officers, civilians even co-workers who made attempts to help others.”

A third man, Austin James, a former police officer, also ran to confront the shooter. Although Mr. James was armed, he initially — and intentionally — did not draw his weapon, he said. He had feared being confused for the gunman. When Mr. James rounded a corner, he encountered Mr. Williams, who shot him in the upper arm, shattering his bone and severing an artery.

“He didn’t say or do anything,” Mr. James said in a text message from the hospital, where he has been since the shooting. “Just had a blank stare on his face.”

Once wounded, Mr. James said he drew his gun and tried to fire, but his gun was without a round in the chamber. He said he was trying to chamber a round when his wife and her friend — both emergency room nurses — found him and pulled him back to the car, where they began to treat his wounds.

Old Routines, Newfound Grief

In the wake of the shooting, many of the grief-stricken went back to familiar routines. Ms. Tucker punched into her own fast food job, at Sonic, just a few hours after she had crouched on the floor of the In-N-Out. Chain restaurants nearby, just steps from where the gunman had torn through the parking lot, went back to business. BASE jumpers began laying out their gear on the gr*** by the visitor center again.

Mr. Salinas returned to parts of his daily life, too. He petted horses, watched YouTube videos and picked up coffee at his go-to cafe. He has struggled with what to say, what to feel and what to think about those who try to claim him as a member of their political tribe. Yes, he’s grateful for Idaho’s gun laws, which allow most people to carry a concealed gun without a license. And he hopes other people consider safely carrying a gun and learning how to respond to a similar attack.

Mr. Salinas, who described himself as “pro-freedom,” said he cares about politics. But in that moment in the In-N-Out parking lot, politics was the last thing on his mind.

“The people in there, I couldn’t care less how they voted, or if they voted,” he said.

Mr. Salinas’s father, Hector, said he had long questioned his son’s need to leave the house with a gun. Now, he just feels proud.

As Jordan Salinas stood in the coffee shop Wednesday afternoon, he offered his condolences to the three victims, the youngest of whom was an In-N-Out employee from California helping to train the new staff.

He also talked about the gunman.

He wished they had come face to face years earlier, instead of last week.

Maybe, Mr. Salinas wondered, he could have taught Mr. Williams how to channel his emotions into playing the guitar, or helped him paint, or write a book. Maybe they could’ve met in some other way. Any way, really.

“I didn’t want to be there,” he said. “I didn’t want to do that.”

Maia Spoto contributed reporting. Kirsten Noyes contributed research.