Shooter’s high school coach: ‘Warning signs were there’

Two high school coaches who worked with Ian David Long, who shot and killed 12 people Wednesday at a bar in Thousand Oaks, Calif., said he was volatile and had behavioral problems that went unaddressed by school administrators. Long, 28, was a Marine machine gunner and Afghanistan war veteran. Police confirmed Sunday that an autopsy determined he died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Evie Cluke, a coach on the Newbury Park High School track team in 2007 and 2008 while Long was a student and a member of the team, said Sunday he was a “ticking time bomb” who lost his temper and screamed at coaches. Cluke also said she witnessed him assault another coach, Dominique Colell, who said Long grabbed her after she refused to return a cellphone and another time mimicked shooting her. Colell removed Long from the track team after the first incident, but the boys track coach asked her to reconsider, and the head coach later reversed her decision. Cluke said she and others reported Long several times to administrators, who never did anything. She also said Long told her that he wanted to join the military because “he wanted to kill for our country.” “The warning signs were there,” Cluke said. Representatives of the school did not immediately return requests for comment.

Hundreds of people were inside the Borderline Bar and Grill, about 40 miles west of Los Angeles, for college night when Long opened fire at 11:20 p.m. Wednesday, killing 12. Police had interviewed Long at his home last spring after an episode of agitated behavior, possibly from post-traumatic stress disorder, but determined he did not meet the criteria for involuntary committal for mental health treatment.