Daniel Manrique was just 33-years-old when his life was taken at the Borderline Bar & Grill in Thousand Oaks, California on November 7, 2018.
Manrique was a Marine Corps veteran and radio operator. He was also head of the Ventura County chapter of the veterans non-profit, Team Red, White & Blue. According to their website, Team RWB’s mission “is to enrich the lives of America’s veterans by connecting them to their community through physical and social activity.”
According to Task & Purpose, Manrique intended on joining friends at the Borderline Bar & Grill on the evening of November 7. Jacklyn Pieper, who knew Manrique since childhood, told the outlet that he arrived before friends and made his way into the bar just “as all hell broke loose.”
On Thursday, Daniel’s brother took to Instagram with a post that read, “Devastated, angry, lost. Last night a gunman opened fire at a bar in my hometown and my brother was a victim of a senseless crime. My brother was a veteran who wanted to help fellow recovering veterans in re-entering society and gave his all to supporting veteran mental health. He ran in to help people escape the violence and ultimately gave his life protecting others. Describing the pain would not do it justice. I’ll be remembering a hero, a brother, and a role model. Semper Fidelis.”
Daniel’s cousin, Amanda Campos, also took to social media with a Facebook post that read, “my cousin Daniel Manrique was killed in the Borderline shooting last night. I am heartbroken and infuriated. This is when he visited New York and I took him to the veteran bar by Columbia. He served our country in the Marines and was a dedicated veteran advocate post military service. He was the sweetest person with so much love for his family. Do not become desensitized to these shootings. He is not a statistic. WE LOVE YOU DANIEL.”
According to his LinkedIn, Manrique earned his BS in Arts, Entertainment, and Science from Full Sail University in 2010. He went on to earn his MS in the same discipline. He also studied Management Studies at Norwich University.
For nearly three years, from 2011 to 2014, he worked as a Home Mortgage Consultant at Bank of America. After that, Manrique went on to work as a financial representative at Northwestern Mutual. He served as the Pacific Regional Program Manager for Team Red, White, & Blue, since October 2018; however, he was involved with Team RWB since 2012.
Task & Purpose reports that Manrique served with 2nd Combat Engineer Battalion, 2nd Marine Division, and deployed to Afghanistan in 2007 with the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit.
Pieper shared with Task & Purpose, “His whole plan was to see the world and get leadership experience, and he was able to do that in those four years [in the Corps]… Everything he did was selfless.”
She added that growing up, Manrique volunteered with special needs children at his local church. After he left the Marines, he founded a non-profit that provided financial planning assistance to veterans with mental health issues. “He was all about giving back to the veterans community and creating that community,” Pieper said. “He talked a lot about the isolation that veterans feel when they return home without continuity or consistency, and he just wanted to extend his armed around whoever else felt that.”