Cook’s Corner, the iconic biker bar in Orange County’s Trabuco Canyon, has for decades drawn motorcycle riders from all over Southern California.
That’s where Nelson Rosales, 30, of Highland Park, was planning to meet up with fellow biker friends on Aug. 23, 2023.
Like untold numbers of motorcycle enthusiasts before them, they planned to take a ride through the canyon after spaghetti night at the bar.
As he drove up, Rosales couldn’t have known how his life would change seconds later.
Inside the bar, 59-year-old John Patrick Snowling was unleashing horrific violence on patrons dining there. The former Ventura police officer had just shot and injured his estranged wife and shot three other people to death. He shot six and wounded six others before fleeing outside.
As he approached, Rosales saw a woman come out from behind a pick-up truck. She frantically told him that a man was shooting people inside the bar. Rosales himself then heard two shots. He saw people just outside the bar stiffen suddenly, then fall to the ground.
“It felt like forever,” Rosales said of that moment.
Standing off to the side of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department’s Medal of Valor ceremony on Thursday morning at the Hilton Anaheim, Rosales was the only civilian honored for his bravery that night last summer, along with the seven deputies who ultimately took down Snowling and treated wounded victims inside Cook’s Corner.
After hearing the shots, Rosales saw Snowling moving away from the bar. He called 911 before taking cover behind a pole. That’s when he saw three deputies drive up — he jumped up and ran to them, warning them he’d seen Snowling moving toward a rise just to the north.
Had Rosales not warned the deputies, leaders with Sheriff’s officials said, Snowling could have killed far more people that day.
Other recipients from the OC sheriff’s 36th annual Medal of Valor ceremony
“He was in a classic ambush position,” Orange County Sheriff Don Barnes said of Snowling.
As a former police officer, the gunman knew where to place himself to kill those who arrived to help.
Rosales, Barnes said, “placed himself in peril” to tell the incoming deputies what he saw.
Had Rosales not alerted them, the first three deputies who arrived — Jesus Carrasco, Juan Contreras and Brandon Espinosa — all might have parked closer to the front entrance of the bar.
That would have placed them in position to be easily shot from his driver’s side window, Carrasco said.
Rosales, who works as a civilian for the South Gate Police Department, said his law enforcement experience allowed him to “keep a cool head” throughout the ordeal.
Barnes and others surprised Rosales with his own medal Thursday night.
Since the shooting, Rosales and Carrasco said they’ve become friends. Rosales said he had only expected to be at the ceremony to support Carrasco. He spoke softly as ceremony attendees pressed in to meet him.
“I was a little overwhelmed,” he said.
Three friends first at the scene
Carrasco, Contreras and Espinosa meet every afternoon at a gas station at Santa Margarita and Marguerite parkways. That’s where the three friends, all deputies assigned to patrol Mission Viejo for the Sheriff’s Department, take a moment to talk before their shifts.
At this point, Aug. 23, 2023 was like any other day. The trio had a softball game coming up, and they needed to talk strategy.
“Getting our energy drinks, getting our snacks, planning out our day,” Carrasco said of their regular meetup. “Deciding where to get dinner later that night.”
They decided on tacos at Casa Franco, then jumped into their patrol cruisers.
Just as they were preparing to leave the parking lot, they heard a call come over their radios of “unknown trouble” at Cook’s Corner.
Contreras said while Mission Viejo can be “a busy city” for their station with all kinds of calls, gun violence is not common in the area.
“We get little things, big things, everything in between,” Contreras said, “but usually a ‘shots-fired’ call is about fireworks.”
Within seconds, it became clear this was not a call about fireworks.
“We were getting multiple callers — that’s when we knew this was legit,” Carrasco said. “People were down, shots were being fired. Multiple callers saying they were beginning to hide in the restaurant.”
All three said they were preparing to quickly run into the restaurant where the shooting was taking place, jumping out of their cruisers as soon as they got there in an effort to stop the violence.
Just as they were pulling up, however, Rosales left where he was taking cover and approached the deputies.
“He pointed in the direction of where the gunman was last seen,” Contreras said.
Up on the small rise overlooking the restaurant, not inside — Snowling was perched behind cars and near a tree, waiting for law enforcement to arrive. As soon as the deputies got out of their cruisers, Snowling fired a slug from his shotgun, sending the round exploding through one of their front windshields.
The firefight that followed unfolded over seven minutes. The trio fired dozens of rounds at Snowling, who was firing his shotgun and a pistol back in their direction.
Contreras said they could hear the rounds coming in overhead — too close, and clearly being fired by someone with experience.
Contreras described the zooming sound as bullets flew above him. In that moment, he said, more than anything he just wanted to be with his family.
Video of the encounter, taken from the deputies’ body cameras, showed the tense shootout. All three deputies spoke to each other constantly even as they were being shot at.
“As long as they continued talking to me,” Espinosa said, “I knew they were OK.”
Despite the terror, the three deputies found moments of levity. When Contreras spotted Snowling, he warned his friends that the gunman was standing behind a tree.
“Which one?” Carrasco asked him.
Behind the bar is a wooded hill — there were trees everywhere.
“The big one,” Contreras said.
Other deputies quickly arrived to help the trio: Matthew Harm, Christian Moreno, Brandon Saunders and Daniel Serrano all joined the firefight. With some attempting to flank Snowling.
Carrasco said he, Contreras and Espinosa unleashed a final volley at Snowling. After that, no more rounds came from his direction; Carrasco moved toward Snowling’s prone body, while Contreras and Espinosa ran to the bar, where they found a victim dying from a shot to his head, and another woman shot in her face.
Carrasco said approaching Snowling’s body, it was clear the gunman was prepared to hold out in that position against any arriving law enforcement.
All three deputies said that since the shooting, they’ve only grown closer. They said being able to talk about their experience helped them process what they went through.
Sheriff Barnes said he’s seen the emotional toll traumatic events can take on his deputies.
He’s seen the bottled-up emotions come pouring out when, as a commander, he’s given his deputies the space to open up — deputies who, after experiencing something terrible, have wept in his office, or who have talked about their feelings to another person for the first time.
Processing the emotions, Barnes said, can be a tough ask for law enforcement officers who might feel an expectation to maintain a tough facade.
“Sometimes you have to give them permission to emote,” Barnes said. “It’s not good to push down these emotions — it impacts them and it can impact their relationship with the community.
“We want to talk them through these tough times — giving them permission to be a person, to allow them and give them a space to talk out their feelings,” Barnes said.
As good of friends as they were before, Carrasco, Contreras and Espinosa said their relationship has only grown since the shooting.
“We were already at the max friendship possible,” Carrasco said. “Now we’re even closer.”