Idaho In-N-Out Hero Jordan Salinas Explains the Split Second Decision That Stopped the Gunman

A gunman opened fire inside a brand new Idaho In-N-Out and killed three people in seconds.

Twin Falls police say an armed customer and an off-duty trooper drove that gunman away.

That customer just revealed the exact thought process that made him pull his own gun.

Twin Falls Police Call Him and a Trooper Heroes

Twin Falls Police Chief Matthew Hicks said 24-year-old Chad Williams opened fire at the brand-new In-N-Out Burger on Blue Lakes Boulevard North Saturday.

Williams killed three people, including a restaurant employee, and wounded seven others before turning the gun on himself.

Investigators believe he acted alone.

Hicks said an armed customer and an off-duty Idaho State Police trooper returned fire on Williams.

He credited their actions with driving the gunman away from the crowded restaurant and preventing more deaths.

The restaurant had opened just over a week earlier.

Police still have not identified a motive.

Hicks said Williams' own family is cooperating with detectives as they piece together his movements before the attack.

Five of the seven wounded victims remained hospitalized the day after the shooting, two of them in critical condition.

Two others were treated and released.

In-N-Out President Lynsi Snyder confirmed an employee was among those killed.

Fox News reported Snyder described the employee as someone who was "taking care of our most important asset – our Customers."

Armed Citizen Jordan Salinas Had Trained for This for Years

The armed customer is Jordan Salinas, 35, of Kimberly, Idaho.

Salinas works in healthcare and serves as the full-time caregiver for his brother, who uses a wheelchair.

He and his girlfriend had gone horseback riding that morning before stopping at the new In-N-Out.

https://x.com/MarioNawfal/status/2084114533551833596“>https://x.com/MarioNawfal/status/2084114533551833596

Salinas first assumed the commotion outside the restaurant was a kitchen fire, until he heard gunshots.

He was carrying a suppressed FN Five-Seven pistol holstered in a chest rig.

Fox News reported that Salinas took up firearms training after a 2021 shooting, despite never before having fired at so much as an animal.

He said pulling the trigger felt automatic, the product of years spent preparing for exactly this scenario.

Salinas described sizing up Williams through a mental framework: observe, orient, decide, act.

Breitbart News reported Salinas said the shooter "did not like it when bullets started firing both ways."

Fox News reported Salinas concluded in an instant, "OK, this is the guy," before he moved to act.

Twin Falls County Sheriff Jack Johnson called Salinas and the trooper "true heroes in our community."

Investigators have not yet publicly named the off-duty trooper who fought alongside him.

Twin Falls Just Proved What the Gun Control Crowd Won't Admit

A healthcare worker with a concealed pistol did what dozens of new gun laws never could.

He stopped a killer in real time, with no waiting period, no permit slip, and no politician standing between him and the trigger.

This isn't an isolated fluke.

Back in 2022, a 22-year-old named Elisjsha Dicken drew his own concealed handgun at the Greenwood Park Mall in Indiana and ended a mass shooting in fifteen seconds flat, dropping a heavily armed attacker before police even arrived.

Twin Falls just gave America the same lesson twice over, with a trooper and a caregiver doing what Washington insists only government can do.

Salinas didn't have a badge that day.

He had a pistol, a suppressor, and years of training the anti-gun lobby spends every session trying to legislate out of existence.

Red-flag laws, waiting periods, magazine bans – none of it would have put Jordan Salinas in that parking lot with the tools to save lives.

His training did.

Twin Falls Republicans have spent years defending Idaho's concealed carry laws against pressure from Sacramento-style gun control activists.

Saturday proved exactly why that fight was worth having.

Sources

• Fox News Staff, "In-N-Out president 'heart broken' as employee, customers killed in Idaho shooting," Fox News, August 1, 2026.
• Fox News Staff, "Idaho In-N-Out Burger shooting motive still a mystery as armed citizen speaks out," Fox News, August 3, 2026.
• AWR Hawkins, "Armed Citizen Who Engaged In-N-Out Shooter is a Healthcare Worker," Breitbart News, August 3, 2026.
• AWR Hawkins, "Police: Two Good Guys with Guns Engaged In-N-Out Attacker," Breitbart News, August 2, 2026.
• Daily Wire Staff, "In-N-Out Gunman Identified After Drive-Thru Massacre," Daily Wire, August 2, 2026.