3 Dead, 7 Wounded in Shooting at Newly Opened Idaho In-N-Out

Three people are dead. Seven more are wounded. That is the toll from a Saturday afternoon shooting at a crowded fast-food restaurant in Twin Falls, Idaho, a city where a lunch line had never before been a place to die. ²⁴⁵

The gunman opened fire at an In-N-Out Burger in Twin Falls on Saturday afternoon, Aug. 1, 2026, leaving what Twin Falls Police first described only as multiple people dead and others injured. ³⁵ Officers then confirmed the final count: 3 killed, 7 wounded. ²⁴⁵

The restaurant itself was almost brand new. It had opened barely a week before the attack as part of In-N-Out's expansion into Idaho. ⁹ What was supposed to be a novelty — a first taste of a famous California chain in a city of about 55,000 — became the scene of Idaho's worst recent mass shooting.

Among those killed was an In-N-Out employee, along with customers. ⁹¹⁰ In-N-Out President Lynsi Snyder said her heart is broken after the deaths of an employee and customers. ⁹

Police identified the shooter as Chad Williams, 24. ²⁶ He did not survive the attack. Twin Falls Police Chief Matthew Hicks said Sunday, Aug. 2, that the shooter died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. ⁴⁸

The threat ended with the shooting. He fatally shot himself, authorities said, and a motive in the shootings remains under investigation. ⁶ The Associated Press likewise reported that authorities were seeking a motive in the mass shooting. ⁷⁸

Police also credited intervention that may have kept the toll from rising higher, crediting an off-duty officer and a citizen with firing shots that diverted him. ⁸ In the first chaotic minutes, that return fire appears to have pulled Williams' attention away from victims clustered in and around the restaurant.

Witness Lane Koehn, 34, said he was at a stoplight near the In-N-Out when he saw a person with an AR-style rifle emerge from the drive-thru, and then saw a man with a pistol start firing at the shooter. ⁷ Another witness account said the armed bystander may have saved lives by distracting the gunman. ⁶

ABC News identified a 35-year-old bystander, Jordan Salinas, seen on video returning fire. ² The video, along with witness accounts from the parking lot and drive-thru lanes, is now central to the reconstruction of how a few seconds of return fire changed the shooter's path through the crowded site.

Surveillance video released Friday, Aug. 7, shows Williams shooting victims in the drive-thru before being tracked down by law enforcement. ¹¹ Investigators have not said how Williams obtained the rifle, how he arrived at the restaurant, or whether he had any prior connection to the location or to the people he shot.

That silence around motive is now the core of the investigation. Authorities seek a motive in the mass shooting, but no manifesto, prior threat, or explanation has been made public. ⁷⁸

There is also one early detail that has not held up. Our initial video report described an unresolved active-shooter situation with the suspect's status unknown and noted reported FBI assistance in Twin Falls. Subsequent primary reporting confirmed the gunman was dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound and gave a final casualty count of 3 dead, 7 injured. ²⁴⁸ None of the follow-up police and wire reporting provided to date confirms FBI assistance in the response.

For Twin Falls, the immediate danger is over because the shooter is dead. ⁶ What remains is the longer accounting: who lived because a stranger with a pistol fired back, why a 24-year-old chose a week-old burger restaurant on a Saturday afternoon, and how a community absorbs a scale of killing it had never planned for. ⁶⁸⁹