Dan Mulligan in an Instagram photograph taken exactly one year after the shooting at the Oneida Casino that injured him and killed two others. (Dan Mulligan)
MASSACHUSETTS (WTAQ) — It’s been a year now since Dan Mulligan’s life abruptly changed. The former cook at Duck Creek Kitchen and Bar at the Oneida Casino complex was one of the three men shot by 62-year-old Bruce Pofahl–a former coworker who walked into the casino that May 1st with a gun, and the intent to kill.
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“I was cutting something, I remember, and I heard a ‘pop, pop'” Mulligan recalled in an interview with WTAQ. “I look up, and the first victim he took was my best friend and roommate, who was standing about six feet away from me.”
Pofahl shot and killed two, including Mulligan’s best friend and roommate, Ian Simpson, along with Jacob Bartel.
Mulligan was filled with rage.
“I was so mad that he just took my brother’s life in front of me. Furthermore, the smile and the wink he gave to me after the fact,” said Mulligan. “My first concern is that I’m going to jump over this counter and pop this mother-effer. I didn’t.”
He didn’t… yet.
Instead, Mulligan says he saw coworkers on the ground and immediately went to help them get out of the restaurant.
Mulligan went back to find that bystanders were already attempting first-aid on the victims–including Simpson. He then joined the rest of his coworkers as police rushed to the scene.
“I went outside and joined the others, but something didn’t feel right to me. I just was like ‘why are we all standing here in this crowd?'” Mulligan recounted to WTAQ. “‘The shooter could still be at large.'”
Mulligan had no way of knowing just how right he was. In those moments, Pofahl was still out there–in fact he was close.
“All I remember was I looked over, and there he is, trying to blend in with the crowd, and I’m easily the only one who recognized him,” said Mulligan.
Pofahl–in a moment clearly seen on released security camera footage, then approaches Mulligan’s group.
“As I approached him, I said ‘hey, Bruce!'” Mulligan recalled. “He looked at me, we made eye contact, and I swung at him. As soon as I made contact, I don’t know if his gun went off or what happened. I don’t know.”
Mulligan had been shot. In the face.
“The bullet entered right under my right eye,” said Mulligan. “Passed through and out the pack of my head. The miraculous part is that I have no brain damage.”
A provided photo shows Mulligan shortly after the shooting, recovering in a Milwaukee Hospital (Dan Mulligan)
The adrenaline surged through him. In spite of it all, shock did not.
“I laid in that parking lot and told myself ‘you are not going to f—ing die right now,'” Mulligan said Tuesday. “‘You have a lot to live for. You have a lot to move on for. You need to get up.’ Even if the police report, there I am with a bullet in my head covered in a puddle of my own blood, and I’m still trying to get up and fight this bastard.”
The gunshot that left Mulligan bleeding on the pavement alerted police to Pofahl’s location. Less than 40 seconds later, officers closed in… Pofahl was killed after refusing to surrender to police.
Pofahl was said to have a grudge against his coworkers after being fired from his former job at the restaurant.
“Bruce had to be literally escorted out of the building,” Mulligan explained. “He was fired because he’s a pervert, he’s a psychopath, and he’s an a–hole. I knew this, but my other coworkers didn’t.”
Mulligan, a year later, is angry. He feels that neither his former employers nor police did enough ahead of the shooting, when he said plenty of red flags existed. He claims management downplayed the risks Pofahl posed to his former coworkers.
“There are so many reports of him being a pervert, and him being this and that,” said Mulligan. “And even after all that and he got fired, he went and bought a gun? And that didn’t raise any red flags? I guess not.”
Pofahl allegedly sent dozens of threatening texts to a former coworker, including pictures of her house.
Mulligan says he knew more than most staff about what was going on with Pofahl. Mulligan was close to the people involved, even before the shooting.
“I knew that this guy was after us,” Mulligan said. “Not many people knew that. Not many people knew the dangers of this guy.”
Mulligan called Pofahl a control freak, a pervert, and a psychopath. Court documents show that Pofahl sought to control his employees and made inappropriate advances on female coworkers.
“He was actually caught putting tracking devices on my roommate’s car, on some of my other coworkers cars, and maybe even my car–I don’t even know,” said Mulligan.
It ultimately led to his dismissal, although Mulligan says Pofahl had been seen several times at the casino afterwards. Pofahl then bought a gun–a gun that wasn’t confiscated, despite the order of protection, after a judge ruled that Pofahl was not likely a threat.
But he was.
Immediately after the shooting, Mulligan says he was given a grim prognosis: that he may never walk again. His injuries were serious.
“I just remember, mentally, telling myself ‘you need to get better’,” Mulligan said. “Your friend Ian is going to have a service pretty soon, you’re going to want to see that.”
His jaw was wired shut. He spent two weeks in the hospital. But he recovered–he calls it a miracle.
“Physically, I have recovered. Mentally? God no…and this is something I’m just now accepting.”
Mulligan has left Wisconsin. He’s moved back to his native Massachusetts. He’s making music with a group of friends. He says he’s taken a lot away from the worst day of his life.
“Love as hard as you can, as often as you can, and don’t let petty s— get in the way of how you feel about somebody. Just be,” said Mulligan.
“Just be.”
Mulligan as a guest of the Massachusetts Pirates Arena Football Team. The Pirates were a team staying at the Oneida Casino Complex on the night of the shooting, and honored Mulligan–a Massachusetts resident himself–this year. (Dan Mulligan)
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