ODESSA: Four weeks after a gunman opened fire on customers at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, another mass shooting has claimed seven lives and left 21 wounded in Texas. The tragedy unfolded around 3:30 Saturday afternoon, and the rampage, which lasted nearly two hours, left residents of the twin cities of Midland and Odessa reeling. The shootings began with a traffic stop and ended in an exchange of gunfire with police in a movie theatre parking lot. The attacks were all the more terrifying for their apparent randomness. Details have yet to be released on the victims and, according to Odessa Police Chief Michael Gerke, the wounded include three law enforcement officers.
The shooter, who was firing from his vehicle, has only been identified as a white male in his 30s. His motives were unclear.
“Grab your loved ones. Pray for this town,” said Russell Tippin, chief executive officer of the hospital where some of the victims were being treated.
“This is a scary incident,” he added in an interview with a local television station.
The shootings mark what has become an especially deadly summer of gun violence across the country.
In July, three people were killed by a gunman at a festival in Gilroy, California, and on the day after the El Paso shooting, nine people were killed in Dayton, Ohio.
But Saturday’s shooting comes at a time when Texans are still feeling shaken by the killings in El Paso.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott, who recently formed a commission to look into the El Paso shootings and planned to visit Odessa on Sunday, said in a statement: “I want to remind all Texans that we will not allow the Lone Star State to be overrun by hatred and violence’’.
Democratic presidential hopeful and El Paso native Beto O’Rouke reacted to the shooting on Twitter, saying, “Our hearts are with Midland, Odessa, and everyone in West Texas who had to endure this again... We need to end this epidemic’’.
“Our community is devastated,” said John B Love, a City Council member in Midland. “It’s just really, really horrible.”
Love, who supports gun rights, added that the country needs to have a conversation about mass shootings “because lives depend on it’’.
“Something has to be done,” he said.
Residents of Midland and Odessa had been busy celebrating the start of Labour Day weekend. A nine-day country fair — the Permian Basin Fair and Exposition — had opened Friday with pig races, a tractor pull and a Wild West show.
Less than 24 hours later, law enforcement officers were advising motorists to keep off the roads.
“Active Shooter! Please Share!” read a posting on the Facebook page for the Odessa Police Department.
At the time there were unconfirmed reports of a second gunman, only adding to the chaos of the rapid evolving shooting rampage, which began with a trooper from the Department of Public Safety being shot after stopping the gunman’s gold Honda between Midland and Odessa.
The shooter then drove west into Odessa, according to police, and began “shooting at random people’’.
Zindy Galindo was heading to Walmart that afternoon with her 3-year-old son when she was nearly cut off by an erratic driver who shot at the vehicle ahead of her. Galindo heard the gunfire, not knowing at first what it was. Then she saw the back window of the vehicle in front of her shatter.
“At that point, I panicked,” she said, “and called my husband’’. — DPA
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