Seven people were killed and 22 others injured in a gun rampage in the cities of Midland and Odessa in west Texas as police identified the shooter but remained unsure about his motive.
The gunman, identified as 36-year-old Seth Ator of Odessa, who was shot dead by police after he led them on a high-speed chase, had been fired from his job as a trucker hours before.
Ator began his shooting spree when local Texas Department of Public Safety officials tried to pull him over for driving erratically on the motorway connecting Midland and nearby Odessa.
The rampage continued down a 15-mile stretch of the motorway as Ator fired indiscriminately with an AR-15-style assault rifle from his vehicle. At one point, he hijacked a US Postal Service van.
Ator exchanged gunfire with police officers at the Cinergy cinema complex in Odessa, where he was killed. On Sunday, officials speculated he might have planned to shoot inside the cinema.
Reuters
Two victims died overnight on Saturday, officials confirmed, raising the death toll to seven. A local student was killed in the attacks, while three local police officers were shot.
At a news conference on Sunday, local officials praised the police for stopping the atrocity but said they had not yet established a clear motive to explain the level of violence.
"There are no definite answers as to motive or reasons at this point," the police chief of Odessa, Michael Gerke, told reporters, "but we are fairly certain the subject did act alone".
Chief Gerke also said it was not immediately clear whether Ator had legally purchased the assault rifle, a type of weapon used in most of the deadliest shootings in the US this decade.
The police department at first refused to name the gunman because they did not want to give "any notoriety for what he did", but later issued a statement confirming Ator’s identity.
Ator was known to the police. He had been arrested in August 2001 on misdemeanour charges of criminal trespass and evading arrest, but there were no open warrants for his arrest Saturday.
Mass shootings claim hundreds of American lives
The shooting started around 3:15pm local time when the DPS trooper attempted to stop Ator’s gold-coloured sedan for failing to signal as he turned through an intersection.
By the end of the afternoon, Ator had shot three police officers. One trooper is in serious but stable condition, while the other two officers are in a stable condition in hospital.
The attack comes less than a month after mass shootings in Texas and Ohio left at least 31 dead and about 50 injured in the space of 24 hours. Twenty-two were last month killed in an El Paso Walmart.
On Sunday, Texas Governor Greg Abbott recounted the string of shootings in his state. "The status quo in Texas is not acceptable. I have seen too many of these events," he said.
Donald Trump confirmed he had been briefed about the shooting by Attorney General William Barr and told reporters at the White House on Sunday that the gunman was a "very sick person".
"Another very sick person," Mr Trump said of the gunman. "So I just want to thank everybody involved… But it was extremely bad. A very, very sad situation."
The president said his administration was in the midst of preparing a package of legislation in response to the recent spate of mass shootings, but declined to discuss further details.
Click Here: Putters