That night, Gale killed four people, including Abbott, and injured two others before police officer James Niggemeyer arrived and killed the suspect, who had taken a hostage (John “Kat” Brooks, Paul’s drum tech), with a 12-gauge shotgun. Security-camera footage of the incident exists on YouTube a voice onstage pleads, “Call 911, somebody!” amid frantic screams. But when Abbott went down, his guitar shrieking feedback, the gunman, a former Marine named Nathan Gale, kept shooting while crew members struggled with him. Initially, witnesses thought the commotion was firecrackers, or a novel bit of rock theater. “He was like Blutarsky in Animal House,” says Wylde of Abbott, shown photographed at his home in 2003. (Paul, who currently plays in the metal band Hellyeah, declined to be interviewed for this story.)
The groove-metal foursome had just kicked off its opening song, “Breathing New Life,” when a 25-year-old man in a hockey jersey stormed the stage and headed directly for the guitarist, firing a Beretta 9mm handgun at the back of his head, as Paul looked on from behind the drum set.
Six nights earlier, Damageplan, the post- Pantera band Abbott formed with older brother Vinnie Paul, headlined the Alrosa Villa, a 700-person club in Columbus, Ohio.
