Cody Coffman was his dad’s fishing buddy and a beloved athlete and older brother, said his father, Jason Coffman. He was looking forward to welcoming a sister into the world soon.

The 22-year-old was killed inside the Borderline Bar & Grill on Wednesday night, his father confirmed Thursday morning.

Coffman said his son will leave behind a legacy of love and laughter. Coffman said he began coaching his son in baseball when he was 3, and the two went fishing together.

“That poor boy would come with me whether he liked it or not,” he said. “That’s the kind of stuff that I’m truly going to miss.”

Cody loved his baseball team and wanted to join the military, his father said: “He was on his way to fulfilling his dream. He just turned 22 and was talking to recruiters to become part of the Army.”

The last thing Jason Coffman told Cody was, “I love you, son.”

He said he didn’t know how he would give his other sons, who are 6 and 8, the news, but that it would probably be in a church, with his pastor.

-Alejandra Reyes-Velarde and Melissa Etehad

In 29 years with the Ventura County Sheriff’s Office, Sgt. Ron Helus served many roles. He worked narcotics, served on the SWAT team and was a beloved instructor. He was the guy who made work a good place to be, his colleagues said.

Helus was one of the first to arrive at the scene of the shooting at the Borderline Bar & Grill. He was shot multiple times as he entered the bar.

Just a year or so away from retiring, Helus was a rock in the department, his colleagues said.

“Ron Helus is the guy you want protecting your neighborhood at 2 in the morning,” said Ventura County Sheriff’s Deputy Chris Dyer, who said Helus was his academy instructor. “He is in your corner all the time. He makes it amazing to come to work.”

“He was an unbelievable man,” sheriff’s Capt. Garo Kuredjian said. “He was a lifetime learner, a trainer, a mentor, a leader. He was a cop’s cop. His void is going to be felt throughout our agency.”

Helus is survived by his wife and son.

-Brittny Mejia and Benjamin Oreskes

For years, Sean Adler hopped from job to job, looking for his passion.

The 48-year-old father got a bit closer in recent months when he opened Rivalry Roasters, a coffee shop in Simi Valley, said Debbie Nieser, a childhood friend.

Adler had big dreams for Rivalry Roasters, but kept his job for the time being as a bouncer at Borderline Bar and Grill to support his family, Nieser said. That’s where he was killed late Wednesday night, his mother, Gloria Adler, confirmed. He leaves behind his wife and two sons, ages 17 and 12.

Over the years, Adler had coached soccer and taekwondo and worked as a salesman, Nieser said. At one point, she said, he had hopes of becoming a police officer. He was training to become a deputy with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department last year when he had a heart attack and changed course again.

Gloria Adler and Nieser were together Thursday afternoon in Las Vegas, packing to fly to Simi Valley for a vigil at the coffee shop, planned by Adler’s many friends.

Alder’s charisma made him a popular guy, Nieser said.

“He was just as a very caring guy that was a lot of fun,” she said. “He was someone that went after his dreams, someone who was always trying to find his dreams, someone who connected with many different types of people.”

Nieser met Adler when they were children. She was drawn to his good looks and kind soul, she said. He became her first boyfriend, and then a lifelong friend.

She said she saw him last three weeks ago at Rivalry Roasters. They sat together and talked about what he wanted the shop to become.

“I know he wanted to quit working at the nightclubs, so he could be with his family,” she said. “He had been doing it for so long.”

Kathy Connor Navin, a family friend who traveled with Adler on taekwondo tournaments, said Adler was selfless, helping those who could not help themselves.

“He’s been a benefit to everybody’s he’s ever known,” she said.

— Alejandra Reyes-Velarde

Alaina Housley was a bubbly freshman at Pepperdine University with dreams of becoming a singer.

“Alaina was an incredible young woman with so much life ahead of her and we are devastated that her life was cut short in this manner,” her aunt and uncle, former Fox correspondent Adam Housley and TV personality Tamera Mowry-Housley, said in a statement.

Alaina was dancing with her suitemates Wednesday night when they heard the shots fired. Her friends jumped through a broken window to escape, but they lost her in the chaos behind them.

Her Apple Watch and iPhone still showed her location on the dance floor as Adam Housley searched hospitals for Alaina. Mowry-Housley began her search in the early morning hours, when a friend posted photos of Alaina, asking for the public to help find her.

Luke Sides, 19, a friend of Alaina’s at Pepperdine, said he met her last spring at the Malibu Reception, a day when incoming freshmen are invited to get to know the campus. She had just been dropped off by her parents and was sitting alone when Sides introduced himself. She seemed relieved to make a new friend, he said. She soon had made many.

“She was just a really sweet girl,” Sides said. “Whenever I had any problems, she would always reach out and helped me.”

Alaina was an English student in the top 10% of her class, he said. She had aspirations to attend law school, but music was a passion. Sides said he last spoke to her on Wednesday, when they talked about taking a musical theater class together. She joked that she didn’t know how to dance but they’d be good at it, he said.

-Alejandra Reyes-Velarde & Andrea Castillo

Justin Meek was a Borderline bouncer and promoter known as a welcoming friend. He was shot trying to save others in the bar. The 23-year-old was a recent graduate who got his bachelor’s degree in criminal justice from California Lutheran University in May.

“Meek heroically saved lives in the incident,” the university said in a statement.

"The Cal Lutheran community is filled with sorrow over the violent events that took place last night a few miles from campus in Thousand Oaks,” the university statement said. ”Sadly, we have learned from the family that a recent graduate, Justin Meek, 23, is one of the precious lives cut short in this tragedy.”

He was the type of guy who immediately introduced himself to make newcomers feel welcome, said his friend Leah Marty. Meek was part of the campus’ Catholic Club and also a natural connector, Marty said. He loved planning group outings for friends and had a knack for cracking a joke to ease tension, especially when everyone was stressed before tests.

Meek once encouraged her to join a line-dancing club on campus.

“I can’t dance,” she recalled telling him.

“Me neither!” he responded.

She smiled sadly at the memory.

-Andrea Castillo, Marisa Gerber and Sonali

Dan Manrique dedicated his life to service.

First, Manrique, 33, served in the Marines as a radio operator. Then, when he got back from the Middle East to his hometown of Thousand Oaks about six years ago, he began getting involved in organizations to help other veterans with adjusting to life as a civilian.

“He was selfless,” said his brother, Marcos Manrique, 23. “He just wanted to help this country.”

Recently, Dan Manrique, the eldest of four siblings, had gotten a staff position as a Pacific Regional Manager at a nonprofit called Team Red White and Blue, which he had been involved with since 2012. He was set to move out of his parent’s house next week and he had dreams of starting his own business, a brewing company.

Jaclyn Pieper, 33, who has known Manrique since middle school, said that he was always positive and trying to find the upside of things. Pieper woke up this morning and knew that some friends had been at the bar the night before. Pieper began typing out texts.

“Everybody was really prompt to reply except for Dan,” she said.

His brother, Marcos, said he was told that Dan was standing in the parking lot of Borderline Bar & Grill when the shots were fired and that he ran in to help.

“I just want him to be remembered as a true hero,” Marcos Manrique said.

-Nicole Santa Cruz

Noel Sparks, 21, was a student at Moorpark College, said Walter Dilg, a senior pastor at United Methodist Church in Westlake Village. In the past, she was an active member at his church, where she participated in youth groups and the church’s choir, Dilg said.

Sparks had left the church several years ago to attend Cavalry Chapel.

“It is with heavy hearts that we notify you that Noel Sparks was among the victims of last night’s shooting,” the church said in a Facebook post. “We grieve with Tony Sparks and Wendy Anderson.”

Sparks had gone to Borderline Bar & Grill before. In late October, she posted on her Facebook page that she would be attending the bar College Country Night Halloween Hoedown.

Early Thursday morning, Jennifer Avalos, her best friend, had been searching frantically for her best friend, whom she met at church two years ago.

“She’s been there for me through difficult times,” she said crying as she stood outside the Thousand Oaks Teen Center.

— Alejandra Reyes-Velarde and Melissa Etehad

Kristina Morisette’s dad didn’t want her to travel alone last week to Austin, Texas. It made him nervous. But the hard-headed 20-year-old convinced him she’d be fine. She returned to Simi Valley on Wednesday morning with a phone full of pictures to prove she had a great time visiting friends she’d first met at Borderline Bar and Grill.

“When she got home I gave her a big hug and thought, ‘She’s back, she’s safe,’” said Michael Morisette, her father. Before leaving for her 6 p.m. shift at Borderline, Kristina gave her mom, Martha, a souvenir Austin coin purse and said goodbye.

Eighteen hours later, the Morisettes would learn that Kristina, the youngest of their three children, was among those killed. She had been working at the bar’s front desk.

Her parents learned of the shooting when family friends called them at 1 a.m. Wednesday. Within an hour, they were driving to Los Robles Regional Medical Center, where victims had been taken. A sheriff’s deputy told them Kristina wasn’t there. By 3 a.m., they made it to the Thousand Oaks Teen Center, where family and friends of victims and those still missing were gathered.

For hours they comforted bereaved strangers, and the strangers comforted them. They heard all sorts of things secondhand: that Kristina was shot but OK, that she was shot but in critical condition.

At 12:30 p.m., the Morisettes got a clear answer. They drove home to Simi Valley in a fog of grief.

“We’d rather just curl up in a ball and turn off the lights, but there are other people out there that are hurting too,” Michael Morisette said as he held his wife’s hand in their family room on Thursday afternoon. “We could either retreat and draw our curtains or we could talk about the beauty of the things that were.”

Kristina was energetic and talkative, and her friends were the very center of her life, the Morisettes said. She would drop whatever she was doing to console someone who had just gone through a breakup, or pick up a friend who needed a ride. She liked to hike and draw and do makeup. She had just bought her first car — a 2017 Jeep Renegade — with the money she had saved from working at Borderline.

She had recently told her parents she wanted to apply for an animal training program in Austin.

“We didn’t want her life to end, but we don’t want her memories now to end, either,” Martha Morisette said. “We’ll probably always have a hard time dealing with it.”

— Laura Newberry

Telemachus Orfanos, who survived the mass shooting in Las Vegas last year, was killed Wednesday night at Borderline Bar and Grill.

His mother, Susan Schmidt-Orfanos, said she had only one message: gun control.

“I don’t have anything else to say except more gun control,” she said through sobs over the phone. Earlier in the day, Schmidt-Orfanos told KABC-TV that her son had gone to Las Vegas with a friend and made it home.

“He didn’t come home last night,” she said. “And I don’t want prayers. I don’t want thoughts. I want gun control, and I hope to God nobody sends me any more prayers. I want gun control. No more guns.”

On his Facebook page, Orfanos wrote that he worked at Infiniti of Thousand Oaks and had served in the Navy.

— Melissa Etehad and Nicole Santa Cruz