Authorities in Midland-Odessa, Texas, have yet to identify the mass shooter who was killed in a shootout with police after killing 6 people and injuring 24, including 3 police officers.
One of the officers initially pulled the suspect over for failing to signal a left turn. After shooting the officer, he led police on wild chase through the towns of Midland and Odessa, leaving a trail of bodies until the gunman was cornered in a movie theater and himself killed.
The terrifying chain of events began when Texas state troopers tried pulling over a gold car mid-Saturday afternoon on Interstate 20 for failing to signal a left turn, Texas Department of Public Safety spokesman Katherine Cesinger said. 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 stopping him. The gunshots struck one of two troopers inside the patrol car, Cesinger said, after which the gunman fled “and continued shooting innocent people,” including two police officers.
Gerke said that in addition to the injured officers, there were at least 21 civilian shooting victims. He said at least five people died. He did not say whether the shooter was included among those five dead, and it was not clear whether he was including the five dead among the at least 21 civilian shooting victims.
More than 12 hours after the gunfire subsided, we still don’t know much at all about the shooter. Authorities are playing this one very close to the vest, wanting to gather as much information about this man before the media frenzy begins.
Democratic candidates for president used the shooting to push their pet gun control issues.
Beto O’Rourke used a barnyard epithet to describe the situation.
“Not sure how many gunmen, not sure how many people have been shot, don’t know how many people have been killed, the condition of those who have survived. Don’t know what the motivation is, do not yet know the firearms that were used or how they acquired them,” O’Rourke told an audience in Fairfax Station, Va.
“But we do know this is f—-d up,” O’Rourke said to applause.
“There is no reason we have to accept this as our fortune, as our future as our fate and yet functionally, right now, we have,” said O’Rourke, who has called for a mandatory assault weapon buyback program that would require owners of AR-15s and similar rifles to hand them over to the government.
No doubt by the end of the day, we’ll know a lot more about the gunman and have a clue as to his motivation.
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