Prosecutor shot to death in Texas
A manhunt is underway for the shooter and the driver of the car he fled in.
A Texas prosecutor was shot to death outside the Kaufman County Courthouse Thursday, triggering a manhunt for those responsible.
Mark Hasse — an unmarried, 57-year-old assistant district attorney for the county prosecutor’s office — was shot multiple times, Kaufman County Sheriff ’s Department spokeswoman Pat Laney said in an interview.
Hasse was on his way to his office and had gotten out of his car when someone approached him and a brief argument broke out, Kaufman Police Chief Chris Aulbaugh said at a televised news conference. Kaufman County includes part of the DallasFort Worth area.
Initially, there was confusion over the number of assailants. But late in the day, Laney said one person had assaulted and shot Hasse, then got into a late-model Ford Taurus driven by another person and fled.
Aulbaugh said Hasse was “likely” targeted, but couldn’t be positive.
Hasse, like other prosecutors in the office, would be handling nearly 400 cases at a time, and it would be tough to determine a likely suspect from all the cases he’d prosecuted, Kaufman County Dist. Atty. Mike McLellan said at the news conference.
“It’s simply the nature of the beast,” he said. “When you deal with bad people on a regular basis, you know there’s a potential for bad people to do something bad to you, because they’ve done something bad to someone else.”
Officials announced a $36,000 reward for information leading to an arrest.
The shooting came the same day the U.S. Department of Justice announced that two members of the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas gang had pleaded guilty in federal court to racketeering charges. The department credited Kaufman County prosecutors for assisting with the case.
The Dallas Morning News, citing unidentified officials with knowledge of Hasse’s caseload, reported that he was “heavily involved” with the prosecution.