Gunman fired from job before massacre
The man who killed seven people and wounded 22 others in a rolling rampage across West Texas on Saturday was fired from his trucking job hours before the massacre, media and officials reported.
The gunman, identified by police as Seth Aaron Ator, 36, of Odessa, had been fired from his truck-driving job in Odessa, Texas, on Saturday morning, the New York Times and other media reported.
Hours later, Ator was pulled over in Midland, Texas, by state troopers for failing to use a turn signal, police said. Armed with an Ar-type rifle, Ator fired out the back window of his vehicle, injuring one trooper. Then he drove away spraying gunfire indiscriminately, the Texas Department of Public Safety said in a statement.
At one point, Ator abandoned his vehicle and hijacked a U.S. postal van and mortally wounded the postal carrier, identified by postal officials as Mary Grandos, 29. Ator was later cornered by officers in the parking lot of a cinema complex in Odessa. He was shot and killed.
“There are no definitive answers as to motive or reasons at this point, but we are fairly certain that the subject did act alone,” Odessa Police Chief Michael Gerke said at a news conference.
Online court records showed Ator had convictions in 2002 for criminal trespass and evading arrest. The Midland Reporter-telegram newspaper quoted a state lawmaker, Rep. Tom Craddick, as saying he had previously failed a background check.
Among the dead was Grandos, who various news media reported was at the end of her shift and on the telephone with her twin sister Rosie Grandos.
“She didn’t deserve this,” a tearful Rosie Grandos said in an interview with CNN. “I heard her screaming,” she said. “I was hearing her cry and scream for help. I didn’t know what was happening.”
The Washington Post reported that others among the dead were Edwin Peregrino, 25, Leilah Hernandez, 15 and Joseph Griffith, 40.
Among the wounded was a 17-month-old girl, Anderson Davis, who was shot in the face. Her family said that the child underwent surgery and will recover.
Three police officers who were shot and wounded were in stable condition.
It was the second mass shooting in Texas in four weeks. On Aug. 3, a gunman from the Dallas area killed 22 people at a Walmart store about 410 km west of Midland in the city of El Paso, Texas.
President Donald Trump called the Odessa-midland shooter “a very sick person,” but said background checks on gun buyers would not have prevented recent U.S. gun violence.