Shooting survivors return to place where their lives changed foreverFree Access

Borderline: Two Years Later



HOPE—Ali Alinejad, left, and his wife, Esther, talk to Jasmin Alexander, center, and her 3-month-old daughter, Mila, at Borderline Bar and Grill on Nov. 5. Alexander is one of the 248 survivors of the mass shooting. MICHAEL COONS/Acorn Newspapers

HOPE—Ali Alinejad, left, and his wife, Esther, talk to Jasmin Alexander, center, and her 3-month-old daughter, Mila, at Borderline Bar and Grill on Nov. 5. Alexander is one of the 248 survivors of the mass shooting. She said of Mila: “(She’s) a reminder that there are good things in this world. Even though that day was a black spot, it reminds you there are things to live for.” MICHAEL COONS/Acorn Newspapers

Two years after they smashed windows, pushed through fences and fled out of doorways to escape the deadliest shooting in Ventura County history, dozens of survivors of the violence at Borderline Bar and Grill turned their exit routes back into meeting places.

Saturday marked two years since 12 lives were lost at Borderline, but it also marked two years since 248 people survived amid the smoke and chaos. Many survivors returned to the shuttered dance hall this weekend to line dance under the lighted tree in the parking lot in honor of their fallen friends who no longer could.

Borderline survivor Jasmin Alexander, 27, said Saturday was “an achievement for survivors, but it also marks a day of remembrance for our friends.” Alexander knew six of the 12 victims.

“Not a day goes by that I don’t think about Borderline,” the Moorpark native said. “You have to live for those who can’t.”

The night of the shooting, Alexander watched as her friends carried out the wounded and as first responders administered aid in the dark November night. The experience inspired her to become a full-time EMT for an ambulance company. She said she sometimes thinks of the shooting when she’s working on patients.

“People helped us on our worst day,” she said. “I want to help people on theirs.”

People watch as hundreds of vehicles participate in the Borderline Remembrance Drive past the shuttered Borderline Bar and Grill Nov. 7 in Thousand Oaks for the second anniversary of the shooting that left 13 people dead, including the shooter.

Dylan McNey has seen more than his fair share of worst days. Borderline was the second mass shooting he had survived in a year. The 24-year-old was at the Route 91 Harvest music festival in Las Vegas when a gunman opened fire from a position 32 stories above the country music concert, killing 58 people—including five with ties to Ventura County—and injuring hundreds more.

Thirteen months after living through the deadliest mass shooting in American history, McNey escaped out of the back door of Borderline, which is tied with four other mass casualty events as the 19th-deadliest shooting in American history.

Sitting on the smoking porch of the closed country bar Nov. 7, the Newbury Park resident said milestones are hard. He lost eight friends at Borderline and one in Las Vegas.

“It’s tough at times, but any day I get to wake up and take a deep breath and stand on two feet, I’m grateful,” he said.

McNey said he’s still learning what God has in store for him.

“I’m still trying to figure out whatever he’s got planned for me, so I’ll take it,” he said.

Sitting near McNey on the dark porch, Hannah Michalak, 26, said the shooting still feels surreal, like it was a bad dream.

But Michalak, who has completed her college degree and become a special education teacher since the shooting, knows it is a grim reality. Victoria Rose Meek, whose brother Justin was killed while trying to save others, is one of Michalak’s best friends.

“That’s hard for me just knowing I’ll never be able to give her her brother back,” she said.

Fern Diamse, a former Navy medic, turned 36 less than an hour after he survived the mass shooting, which broke out sometime after 11 p.m. and lasted a matter of minutes.

On Saturday, he spent the night before his 38th birthday drinking a Pabst Blue Ribbon beer at the makeshift memorial, which sits underneath the boarded-up window he smashed out two years ago so he and others could escape.

In a way, he was finishing a drink he had started two years earlier. He and Justin Meek were drinking PBR “tallboys” when the gunfire erupted.

“It was the last beer Justin and I shared,” he said. “I was only able to drink half of it that night. This is for me. I’m here now.”

Alexander said the milestone was a chance to reflect on how far she and other survivors have come since the shooting. Alexander gave birth to her daughter, Mila, three months ago.

The doting mother has already bought Mila two pairs of cowboy boots. She sometimes line dances with the infant to rock her to sleep.

“She’s been like a big bundle of joy. I couldn’t have asked for anything better. Those little smiles she gives, her little giggles, it warms your heart,” Alexander said. “It’s a reminder that there are good things in this world. Even though that day was a black spot, it reminds you there are things to live for.

“It’s a reminder everything’s going to be OK.”