The truck driver was Seth A. Ator, 36, the gunman who waged a mobile mass shooting that spread panic and bloodshed across the West Texas sister cities of Midland and Odessa on Saturday.
On Monday, the depth of the gunman’s erratic and nomadic life and behavior became clearer, as the authorities described how he was fired from his trucking job the morning of the shooting, called the FBI tip line and was even on the phone with 911 dispatchers as he carried out the attack. He had been living a kind of drifter’s life in the West Texas oil fields, estranged from many relatives, grappling with the suicide of his older sister and ditching apartment life for a secluded shack-style building where he shot his firearms outside late into the night.
“He was on a long spiral of going down,” said Christopher H. Combs, the special agent in charge of the FBI’s San Antonio office.
One friend of the family said the gunman had a long history of mental problems, trouble with the law and making racist comments. “The man should have never had a gun near his hand ever,” said the friend.
But the suspect did have guns, including the military-style rifle he used Saturday. He opened fire on state troopers who tried to pull him over for a simple traffic violation in Midland, sped down Interstate 20 shooting motorists and hijacked a postal van as he continued his spree in Odessa. The authorities said he killed seven people, including the female driver of the postal van, before officers ended the chase outside a movie theater in Odessa by shooting and killing him.
More than 20 people were wounded, including a state trooper, a Midland officer, an Odessa officer and a 17-month-old girl. An additional victim was revealed Monday, a 70-year-old woman who was struck by shrapnel while in her vehicle. She took herself to the hospital and was treated and released.
This article originally appeared in
.