A man carrying a rifle opened fire Saturday afternoon at the In-N-Out on Blue Lakes Boulevard in Twin Falls, Idaho, a busy retail strip.
Three people were killed and seven wounded, two of them critically. Police have identified the gunman as Chad Williams, 24, say he acted alone, and say he died by suicide.
They also say two people shot back at him — and that it mattered.
The drive-thru line
Police say a customer waiting in the In-N-Out drive-thru line was armed with a handgun and returned fire. He has been identified as Jordan Salinas, 35, of Kimberly, Idaho. An off-duty Idaho State Police trooper, who has not been named, also engaged Williams and fired at him.
Salinas has said he was arriving at the restaurant with his girlfriend, heard gunshots, and moved toward them.
Witnesses and investigators describe Williams as appearing panicked afterwards — looking around, moving "kind of erratically."
Twin Falls Police Chief Matthew Hicks said the two men's actions helped drive the gunman away from the scene and prevented further casualties. Twin Falls County Sheriff Jack Johnson put it more directly: "These people are true heroes in our community, and their actions diverted the shooter and no doubt saved many lives."
It is worth being careful with this, in both directions. Armed-bystander stories are among the most politically freighted things in American crime reporting, and they are frequently wrong in early accounts — which is why this piece originally flagged the claim as unconfirmed and declined to run it. It is now confirmed, on the record, by police, with a named person and a second armed responder who happened to be a trooper on his day off.
That is what the evidence supports. It is not an argument about anything broader, and the people best placed to make one are the families of the three people who died anyway.
Those who were killed
- Christopher Claunch, 59
- Ashley Garibay, 23, an In-N-Out employee, originally from Stockton, California
The third person killed has still not been publicly identified. Seven more people were wounded; two were in critical condition.
Police have confirmed that Williams died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. He has been described as a former College of Southern Idaho student who attended from 2022 to 2023 without completing a credential — which is, to date, close to the sum of what is publicly known about him.
Twin Falls public information officer Joshua Palmer said the shooting began inside the restaurant. The first 911 calls came at about 2:29 p.m.
What is on video, and what it means
Several videos circulating on social media appear to show a man in a black shirt and jeans carrying a large rifle. One shows him walking through the In-N-Out drive-thru. Another shows him firing into the front windshield of a parked Tesla.
A witness told the Associated Press he saw a person with an AR-style rifle emerge from the drive-thru.
Some accounts online place the Tesla at or near a Supercharger station in the same commercial strip. Officials have not confirmed that detail, though Tesla charging signage is visible in the background of at least one of the circulating clips.
Here is the part that still matters more than any of it: police have not established a motive. They now know who he was. They have said his family is cooperating with investigators. They have not said why.
Why we are still not going to guess
A gunman firing into a Tesla in 2026 invites an immediate inference, and that inference was everywhere within the hour of this happening.
It has still not been established by anyone investigating it.
Nothing released so far indicates whether the vehicle, its occupants, the restaurant, or nobody in particular was the target. Williams has been named; his motive has not been described. Those are separate things, and a name does not supply a reason.
The shooting began inside the restaurant, according to the city. Any account that starts at the Tesla is starting in the middle.
What the response looked like
Officers from Twin Falls, Buhl and Jerome police departments and Idaho State Police responded, along with Twin Falls Fire and Magic Valley Paramedics. Early in the incident police were searching for what they described as one to two shooters, including near a hotel under construction nearby — an account since overtaken by events.
Roads across the area were closed, including the Perrine Bridge, which links Twin Falls to I-84.
St. Luke's Health System issued a critical alert, asking the public to stay away from its Magic Valley hospital unless they had an emergency — the standard step when a trauma centre needs its capacity for incoming patients.
The FBI said it is aware of the situation and assisting local law enforcement.
What to expect next
The third victim's name. Some account of Williams from investigators or his family. And, eventually, a motive — or an admission that one was never legible.
Updated. This story originally reported three killed and two injured, and flagged as unverified a social media claim that an armed bystander had exchanged fire with the gunman. Police have since revised the toll to three killed and seven wounded, identified the gunman as Chad Williams, and confirmed that an armed customer and an off-duty state trooper both returned fire. A motive has still not been established.
