On Wednesday, August 23, 2023, a mass shooting in Orange County at a well-known “biker” bar in Trabuco Canyon called Cooks Corner. In this case, the gunman had turned out to be an ex-cop known as John Snowling. During this shooting, his aggressive intentions were aimed towards his estranged wife.

While investigators began searching for the motive of Snowling, they discovered that Snowling (who had previously been living in Camarillo with his wife) was known to be living in Ohio and had recently traveled back to southern California. Whether he had followed her or found out about her being a customer at this bar is unknown. (Barnes stated)

Circling back to the incident, The Orange County Police Department had identified John Snowling as an ex-Ventura Police Sergeant. As he came to Cook Corner intending to harm his wife, he shot toward her and then began “shooting randomly” (stated by Sheriff Don Barnes). This event unfolded at about 7 p.m. on a weekly family event, “$8 Spaghetti Night,” and Snowling was armed with two handguns.

To be more specific, it was said that this retired cop had “walked up to his wife and immediately shot her once, wounding her, then shot the women whom she was dining with.” (according to latimes.com) It was later confirmed that the lady his wife dined with was later pronounced dead.

It was also discovered that before the incident, no further conversation or argumentation even hinted that Snowling was opening fire at his wife (as stated by Barnes). “Mr Snowling … then started randomly shooting at patrons within Cook’s Corner,” said Barnes; he later continued to describe how this continued outside of Cook’s Corner.

Later on, Snowling continued back to his truck, where a man from the biker bar confronted him, but as he approached, Snowling shot him also, and this man was later pronounced dead.

As soon as deputies “arrived” after about 2 minutes of the 911 phone call, Snowling was in the parking lot. Snowling then began firing at the police while hitting some of the police vehicles within this time. (said Barnes, according to latimes.com) As this gunfire continued back and forth between the deputies and the ex-cop, “It was gunfire from those deputies that ultimately took the life of Snowling,” said Barnes. This is when the deputies retrieved the weapons used by Snowling (all of which were retrieved legally).

One of the men who died due to this tragic incident was later identified as John Leehey, of Irvine, who was 67. The other two victims who were killed were not identified due to the lack of notification from the officials. Besides the fatalities, six injured were immediately transferred to get medical attention. Two of these six people were in critical condition (a man shot in the chest and a woman shot in her jaw, according to a hospital spokesman, James Chisum). After this tragedy, it was also known that Snowling’s wife was also transferred to UC Irvine Medical Center. Fortunately, it also came to light that no children or deputies were injured in this mass shooting.