Idaho Shooting: Three Killed at In-N-Out Restaurant
A shooting at an In-N-Out restaurant in Twin Falls, Idaho, killed three people and wounded seven. Gunman Chad Williams, 24, died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
The In-N-Out fast food restaurant in a busy shopping center in Twin Falls, a city of about 56,000 in southern Idaho, had been open for exactly one week when, on Saturday, August 1, 2026, at around 2 p.m. local time, a man carrying an AR-style rifle stepped out of the drive-through lane and opened fire. Three people were killed, including one restaurant employee, and seven were wounded. The gunman was found dead near the restaurant.
Shootings like the one in Idaho used to read, in Serbia, as news from somewhere far away, until May 2023 brought the same thing to Belgrade and the villages around Mladenovac. Since then, every such case in the United States gets filtered through the question Serbia asked itself after Ribnikar: who obtained the weapon, how, and whether anyone could have stopped it sooner.
Who Stopped the Gunman?
Twin Falls police said on Sunday that two men fired at the attacker, an off-duty state trooper and an armed civilian, both using handguns. Their identities have not been released. Police Chief Matthew Hicks said at an August 2 news conference that their intervention changed the course of the attack.
We believe their actions helped drive the suspect away from the scene and prevented additional casualties.
The gunman then moved away from the restaurant and, according to police, died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. His body was found close to the shopping center, which held hundreds of people at the time of the shooting.
What Is Known About the Gunman
Police identified the gunman as Chad Williams, 24. Investigators, Hicks said, believe he acted alone. A motive has not been established, and the suspect’s family is cooperating fully with the investigation.
Hicks also warned about disinformation that spread online after the attack, in which a different man, who has no connection to the case, was wrongly named as the shooter. The FBI opened a digital tip line on Sunday for photos and video from the scene, asking the public to share any material they have.
Police described the condition of the wounded on August 2 as follows:
- two were treated at a hospital and released
- three are in stable condition
- two are in critical condition
Names, ages and other details about those killed and wounded have not been released, as families are still being notified.
Restaurant Had Opened Seven Days Before the Attack
That In-N-Out location opened on July 24, 2026, part of the California chain’s expansion into Idaho. Company owner Lynsi Snyder said on Sunday morning that one of those killed was an employee of the restaurant, whom she did not name.
Tonight we lost one of our wonderful team members. In-N-Out will grieve together with the families.
Witness Nayeli Rodriguez, 40, was inside with her daughters, waiting for her order, when she heard gunshots coming from the direction of the kitchen. Staff told customers to get down on the floor, and she left with her children among the last to get out.
We were trying to get as far away as possible, and some angels let us into their car.
An Armed Bystander as Part of the Scenario
A detail that tends to pass as a footnote in American news coverage, that the attack was stopped by an armed civilian, carries its own legal backdrop in Idaho. The state does not require a permit for adult residents to carry a concealed handgun, so the presence of an armed bystander in a shopping center on a Saturday afternoon is statistically expected rather than exceptional. Police explicitly praised that circumstance.
Serbian practice runs in the opposite direction. After the mass killings at the Vladislav Ribnikar Elementary School in Belgrade and in villages near Mladenovac in early May 2023, the state carried out an emergency, penalty-free weapons surrender campaign and tightened permit controls, while carrying a handgun in public remained an exception tied to a narrow category of permits. The same kind of event, then, produces two opposite institutional reactions, which is why American gun debates do not translate directly from Belgrade.
Twin Falls is about 130 miles, or roughly 205 kilometers, southeast of Boise, and about 40 miles north of the Nevada border, in a part of the state where the opening of a major fast food chain had been local news just seven days earlier.
The next step in the investigation is determining a motive and officially releasing the identities of the victims, which police say will happen only once all families have been notified.
