Gunman kills heavy metal guitarist at club

A GUNMAN charged onstage at a packed nightclub and opened fire on the band and the crowd, killing top heavy metal guitarist “Dimebag” Darrell Abbott and three other people before a police officer shot him to death, authorities and witnesses said.

Columbus, Ohio, police department spokeswoman Sherry Mercurio identified three of the victims of Wednesday’s shooting as Abbott, guitarist with the heavy metal rock band Damageplan, and two other men, Nathan Bray and Erin Halk. Damageplan had just begun their first song at the Alrosa Villa when the man opened fire, first targeting Abbott, shooting him multiple times at point-blank range, a witness said.

Abbott, aged 38, one of metal’s top guitarists, and his brother, Damageplan drummer Vinnie Paul Abbott, were original members of Grammy-nominated thrash rock pioneers Pantera, one of the most popular metal bands of the early 1990s.

The witness, 22-year-old Chris Couch, said he was standing about 30 feet away from the stage when he noticed a man wearing a hooded sweatshirt and hockey jersey walk up to the stage, followed by a bouncer and another club employee.

The man in the jersey climbed onto the stage, started yelling and shot the guitarist five or six times at close range, Couch said. He said the gunman also shot a bouncer who pulled him off the musician.

Columbus police spokesman Sgt Brent Mull said that after shooting at members of the band, the gunman fired into the crowd. Mull said a police officer who arrived shortly after the shooting began shot and killed the gunman.

“If the officer wasn’t as close as he was, I think this would have been a lot worse,” he said. “It was a chaotic scene, just a horrific scene.”

Mercurio said the officer who killed the suspect was patrolling nearby when he heard the call go out. He entered the club through a back door and was directed to the stage, where he saw one person lying dead and the suspect holding onto another person, Mercurio said. The officer shot and killed the suspect.

The suspect’s name and that of the fifth person killed were not immediately released. Mercurio said their family members are still being notified.

Amanda Stankus, aged 19, who attended the show with Couch, said she initially thought the shooting was part of the show.

The Abbott brothers produced Damageplan’s debut album, New Found Power, which was released in February. Other band members are vocalist Patrick Lachman and bassist Bob Zilla.

“Damageplan carries on the tradition Pantera started, the ... hell-raising tradition we were all about,” Vinnie Paul Abbott told The Dallas Morning News in October. “We do play some Pantera songs. Me and Dime wrote them, and we feel like we have the right to play them. But the focus is on Damageplan.

“It took a while for some of the Pantera fans to accept it; we knew that was gonna be the case,” he said.