A deadly chain of events
A TERRIFYING chain of events that’s left five people shot dead began when Texas state troopers tried pulling over a car for failing to signal a left turn.
Before the vehicle came to a complete stop, the driver “pointed a rifle toward the rear window of his car and fired several shots” toward the patrol car, Texas Department of Public Safety spokesman Katherine Cesinger said.
The gunshots struck one of two troopers inside the patrol car, after which the gunman fled and continued shooting innocent people, including two police officers before he was killed by officers outside a movie theatre, authorities said.
Police initially reported that there could be more than one shooter, but Odessa Police Chief Michael Gerke later said there was only one.
He said that, in addition to the injured officers, there were at least 21 civilian shooting victims and seven were critically injured. It was not clear if the shooter was included among the five dead.
The shooting began in the heart of Texas oil country where gunfire was exchanged with police, setting off a chaotic afternoon during which the suspect hijacked a US Postal Service vehicle and began firing at random in the area of Odessa and Midland, hitting multiple people.
Video footage shows people running out of a movie theatre, and as Odessa television station KOSA aired breaking developments on live TV, their broadcast was interrupted by police telling them they had to clear the area.
Chief Gerke described the gunman as a white male in his 30s. He did not name him or a motive but said he has some idea who the gunman was.
The shooting comes just four weeks after a gunman in the Texas border city of El Paso killed 22 people after opening fire at a Walmart store.
The shooting brings the number of mass killings in the US so far this year to 25, matching the number in all of 2018, according to a Northeastern University mass murder database.
The number of victims also has reached the level of last year at either 139 or 140, depending on whether the West Texas suspect was one of the five police say are dead.