Twin Falls police released surveillance video Friday showing exactly how 24-year-old Chad Williams methodically killed three people and wounded seven at an Idaho In-N-Out last Saturday—and authorities still have no idea why he did it. That gap matters, because every minute without an explanation is a minute the gun-control crowd fills with their own.
The footage, compiled from multiple cameras with police voiceover, shows Williams pull up to the drive-thru in a white Honda Civic, roll down his window, and shoot 23-year-old employee Ashley Garibay dead at the payment window. He then parks, exits his car, and kills 59-year-old Christopher Claunch sitting in his vehicle. Former police officer A.J. James runs toward the gunfire and gets shot for his trouble—he survived but faces what his father described on Facebook as "a long road of surgeries, recovery and rehab," according to the New York Post. Williams returned to the payment window multiple times to fire at employees rendering aid to Garibay. His handgun jammed; he retrieved a rifle from his car.
Inside the restaurant, an off-duty Idaho State Police trooper—authorities won't name him—directed workers to evacuate and exchanged gunfire with Williams through the drive-thru window. A good Samaritan inside tried to help the trooper and was hit. Outside, a woman fleeing found Williams's discarded jammed handgun, picked it up, realized it was disabled, and dropped it. Williams then walked to a nearby street and fired at cars stopped at a red light, striking three more victims. Another armed citizen engaged Williams as he moved to a Tesla charging station, where he killed 66-year-old Dale Schultz sitting in his vehicle.
Williams then entered the Twin Falls Visitor's Center, where three people were hiding. He left and encountered two employees from nearby businesses on a walking trail. One of them, Braxton Steube, put his hands up and talked to the gunman. "I said, 'I have a family.' I said, 'You don't have to do this,'" Steube told KMVT-TV. "He started to like tear up a bit... And he said to me, 'Just get away from me, man.'" Williams fired at Steube and missed. He killed himself as police closed in; his body was found near a canyon.
Twin Falls Police Chief Matthew Hicks called Steube a hero whose courage "likely gave others the time they needed to escape harm." He praised the off-duty trooper and James the same way. Fair enough—those men ran toward fire while everyone else ran away.
But here's what the coverage won't press on. Williams briefly attended the College of Southern Idaho and previously lived in Arizona, AP News reported. That's it. That's the entire background the public has been given on a man who walked into a restaurant on a Saturday afternoon and started executing strangers. The New York Post noted Williams had "railed against crime in chilling posts" before the shooting—a detail NBC, AP, and the Coeur d'Alene Press all skipped. A man posting about crime before committing mass murder is a thread worth pulling. What did he post? When? To whom? Was he known to any agency? Was he in the system?
The In-N-Out had opened in July. The restaurant was barely a month old. Now three people are dead, and the only answer anyone has is: no motive.
That's not good enough. Every outlet will pivot to gun control within the news cycle. The question they won't ask: what broke in Chad Williams before he broke everyone around him—and who was supposed to catch it?
