Poolside with a gun: Killer shot victims while phoning an ex-girlfriend
Seven people were injured and one killed in a shooting in the University City area of San Diego Sunday. Police said officers shot and killed the gunman.
For years, Peter Selis’ life had been spiraling out of control. In 2008, his marriage ended in divorce. In 2009, the father of two filed for bankruptcy, and again in 2015.
After losing a job with a six-figure salary, he became an auto mechanic, earning about $73,000 a year.
Several weeks ago, the woman he had been living with left him. He was distraught, family members told the police, but no one expected Sunday’s horrific outburst of violence.
Sitting poolside at his University City apartment complex, the 49-year-old Selis shot seven people. There was one fatality, Monique Clark, a 35-year-old mother of three.
During seven or eight chaotic minutes, Selis phoned his ex-girlfriend and methodically fired a .45-caliber Sig Sauer he had legally purchased three years ago.
He appeared to take his time, aiming at terrified guests at Kion Gould’s birthday party. At one point, while still seated on a chaise lounge, Selis slowly and carefully reloaded. Some witnesses said he was drinking beer.
“He wasn’t spraying bullets,” one of the witnesses, Drew Phillips, said in a Facebook Live post. “He shot into the group.”
Most of the roughly 30 people at the party were African-American or Latino. On Monday, though, authorities said they did not consider this a hate crime.
“There is zero information to indicate that race played a factor in this crime,” Police Chief Shelley Zimmerman said at a news conference.
Instead, Zimmerman noted that Selis was despondent over his recent breakup. During much of the rampage, the chief added, Selis kept his ex-girlfriend on his cellphone, even as he shot his victims.
“It is apparent that Selis wanted his girlfriend to hear,” Zimmerman said.
Minutes of terror
At 6:06 p.m. Sunday, police dispatchers took the first call from the scene. A witness reported that two people had been shot near the pool of the La Jolla Crossroads apartments.
The second call came moments later, this one reporting five to seven gunshots.
At the pool, men and women didn’t initially realize what was happening. Phillips thought he was hearing firecrackers. When they saw a man with a gun, people scrambled, looking for safe havens.
“This was an act of terror,” said Navy Lt. J.g. Lauren Chapman, one of the partygoers.
By 6:07, the first police units were on their way to the scene. Eventually, Zimmerman said, 20 patrol officers and a police helicopter would be dispatched.
At 6:08, Engine 35 from San Diego Fire-Rescue Department rolled out, with Medic 31 following. They arrived at 6:12 but were warned by police to stay back — the shooter was still at large.
This was an act of terror.
— Navy Lt. J.g. Lauren Chapman, one of the partygoers
Around that time, Haley Thames saw her cousin, shot twice in the calves, still in the pool. As the gunman reloaded, Thames urged her cousin and another victim to get up and run to the fence.
They did, racing for the ambulances.
At least once, people heard Selis warn others not to assist the wounded. Amberjot Riat and Kaela Wong, two UC San Diego college students, were in the Jacuzzi when the gunfire began.
Taking cover behind a wall, they heard Selis tell others tending to a wounded woman, “You can either leave or you can stay here and die.”
Chapman heard a similar threat. As a blond, blue-eyed woman hovered over one of the wounded, Selis said, “Don’t you touch her. Don’t you help her.”
That victim, Chapman said, was Clark, who died.
Yet several people risked their lives to help others. These good Samaritans included party guests and at least one security guard who was shot at.
Taking cover near the pool, Phillips found that the bloody minutes seemed to drag on forever. He decided to scoop up one of the wounded and make a dash for safety.
“He was just laying there, and just the look in his eyes — sheer terror,” Phillips said. “I threw my phone down. I just picked him up and I just carried him. I basically ran as fast as I could with him in my arms.”
Chapman and several friends hustled two wounded women out of the complex and into the street. They flagged down a security guard’s SUV. After the victims were loaded in the vehicle, the guard sped off, seeking an ambulance.
At 6:13, the police helicopter reported an armed suspect by the pool. The airborne officers directed officers to the scene.
As police approached the pool area, Zimmerman said, Selis fired several times, first at a sergeant, then at several officers. Two returned fire, hitting Selis.
He died at the scene.
“That firefight lasted 20 seconds,” Phillips said.
Running back to the pool, Thames saw that the gunman had been shot — and that several victims lay wounded by the pool.
“They were still on the ground and now one of our friends is dead,” she said, her voice cracking.
He wasn’t spraying bullets. He shot into the group.
— Drew Phillips, one of the witnesses to the shooting
From the balcony of her fourth-floor apartment, Irma Telmi watched as one of the partygoers crouched next to a bleeding woman.
“Fight it, fight it!” Telmi heard the caregiver say to the wounded woman. “Don’t give up, don’t let go!”
Paramedics took away the wounded woman, but the image remained in Telmi’s mind.
“The friends were screaming,” she said. “It was so bad.”
Among the wounded: Gould, the guest of honor at the birthday party. Although he was a La Jolla Crossroads resident like Selis, friends say the two men did not know each other.
‘Terrible experience’
By 6:18, units were ferrying eight victims to hospitals — four to Scripps Memorial in La Jolla, two to Scripps Mercy in Hillcrest and two to Sharp Memorial in Serra Mesa. Seven had gunshot wounds, while one suffered from broken bones.
Chris Van Gorder, Scripps Health’s chief executive officer and president, said emergency teams and the region’s network of trauma hospitals worked well together in responding to “this tragic event.”
Dr. Gail Tominaga, a trauma surgeon, said one female patient brought to Scripps Memorial was shot in the chest, but the injuries were mainly to her soft tissues. Tominaga expected the woman to “recover well.”
A man who had broken his wrist and hand while climbing over a fence had also suffered a concussion. He underwent surgery Sunday and is expected to have a full recovery, Tominaga said.
The two patients at Scripps Mercy were operated on Sunday. Both were stable on Monday, with one in critical condition. “We are cautiously optimistic that both patients will make a full recovery,” said Dr. Vishal Bansal, the hospital’s medical director of trauma.
One of the injured partygoers, Thomas Blea, had recovered sufficiently by Monday afternoon to face reporters — and praise the security guard who shepherded him and several others to ambulances.
“I really want to give thanks. He saved us time,” Blea said, sitting in a wheelchair outside Scripps Memorial, his leg wrapped in bandages. “That guy saved us a lot of time. Getting us to the fire department in a safe zone and getting us here.”
He also lauded the firefighters, police officers and medical staff who helped him after the shooting.
“It is a terrible experience that we went through, but I’m glad that I’m all right,” said Blea, 34. “I’m glad that most of my friends are all right. I was alone at one point, and they comforted me. Not just treated me like a patient.”
The family of Monique Clark, the one person Selis killed, was not ready to talk on Monday about their loss, a relative said.
A GoFundMe page has been set up to raise money for her funeral.
“This vicious act of violence has devastated our family,” Michelle Fugut wrote on the page.
Drowning in debt
Selis’ problems had been brewing for years. When he filed for bankruptcy in 2009, he cited nearly $415,000 in debts — some of which he shared with his recently divorced wife. He owed on his credit cards and his taxes, and was unable to pay off specialty tools and properties. He cited a six-figure salary from an unspecified job in 2007 and 2008, and listed a 6-year-old daughter as a dependent.
In 2009, he took a job as a service mechanic with Pacific Beach Mossy Ford, a job that apparently paid much less, according to court records.
In 2013 and 2014, he reported an annual salary of about $73,000.
When he declared bankruptcy in 2015, he filed with his ex-girlfriend and claimed three children as dependents — a 12-year-old daughter, a 16-year-old son and a 19-year-old stepson.
Selis was born and raised in San Diego, part of a large Catholic family. As a boy, he attended St. Therese Academy.
His father, the late Dr. Robert Selis, practiced dentistry for 49 years in San Diego. His eight siblings include Eve Selis, a popular local musician, and Dan Selis, owner of the Mission Brewery in the East Village.
Another sister, Andrea Lee Posnock, is married to Stuart Posnock. He is CEO of Garden Communities, a development firm that is the parent company of La Jolla Crossroads LLC, owner of the complex where Peter Selis lived and died.
CORRECTION: This article was updated to correct which hospitals the victims of Sunday’s shooting were taken to. Four patients were taken to Scripps Memorial, two to Scripps Mercy and two to Sharp Memorial.
Staff writers Debbi Baker, Teri Figueroa, David Hernandez, Karla Peterson and Lyndsay Winkley contributed to this report.
Start your day right
Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
