Jordan Salinas and his girlfriend had planned a quiet Saturday, starting with horseback riding in Hagerman, safely out of cellphone range. They’d stop for lunch in Twin Falls, he thought, then hit the highway west. All was going according to plan; Salinas pulled into the In-N-Out Burger off of Blue Lakes Boulevard around 2:30 p.m. Chaos followed as he saw scores of people fleeing through the doors. He figured it was a kitchen fire. And then he heard the “pop-pop-pop” of gunfire.
By Mark Dee
Salinas ran toward it — an “automatic” response, “mechanical,” he’d say later. The last thing he remembers hearing was his girlfriend shouting his name — “Jordan!” — and then the shooting started again. The 35-year-old from Kimberly had unwittingly rolled into a mass shooting that would leave three victims dead and at least seven others wounded on the edge of the Snake River Gorge. And he did what he could to stop it.
Salinas reached for his shoulder holster and drew an FN Five-Seven — a semi-automatic pistol with a suppressor fixed to the barrel. He worked through the framework he’d practiced for years. Salinas is a healthcare worker, the full-time caregiver of his wheelchair-bound brother. He began training seriously after a 2021 shooting at the Boise Towne Square mall killed two people and injured several more. Gunmen, he said, went after “soft targets.” A person in a wheelchair — and the aide at his side — would be as soft as they come, he reasoned.