At least seven people were dead in West Texas after a man who was stopped by state troopers when his vehicle failed to signal a left turn opened fire and fled, shooting more than 20 people as he drove before he was killed by officers outside a movie theater, authorities said Saturday.
The shooting began with an interstate traffic stop in the heart of Texas oil country where gunfire was exchanged with police, setting off a chaotic afternoon during which the suspect hijacked a mail carrier truck and began firing at random as he drove in the area of Odessa and Midland.
Police initially reported that there could be more than one shooter, but Odessa Police Chief Michael Gerke later said there was only one.
“The suspect continued shooting at innocent civilians all over Odessa,” a statement from Odessa police said.
Gerke described the suspect as a white male in his 30s. He had been fired from his trucking job just hours before the shooting.
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 spokeswoman 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.
Shauna Saxton was one of the terrified drivers who said she was a target of the suspect during his rampage. She was driving with her husband and grandson in Odessa and had paused at a stoplight when they heard loud pops.
“I looked over my shoulder to the left and the gold car pulled up and the man was there and he had a very large gun and it was pointing at me,” she told TV station KOSA.
Saxton said she was trapped because there were two cars in front of her. “I started honking my horn. I started swerving and we got a little ahead of him and then for whatever reason the cars in front of me kind of parted,” she said sobbing. She said that their vehicle escaped from him but they heard three more shots as they sped away.
Seven people remained in critical condition at one hospital hours after the West Texas shooting, said Russell Tippin, CEO of Medical Center Hospital in Odessa. He said a child under 2 years old was also transported to another hospital.
Tippin said 13 shooting victims were being treated at the hospital Saturday evening but he did not give their conditions or other information about the victims. Social workers and professional counselors are at the hospital to provide support to the families of shooting victims, Tippin said. He also said the hospital has been locked down for that safety of the staff and patients.
Dustin Fawcett was sitting in his truck at a Starbucks in Odessa when he heard at least six gunshots ring out less than 50 yards behind him.
At first, he thought it might have been a tire blowing but he heard more shots and spotted a white sedan with a passenger window that had been shattered. That’s when he thought, “Oh man, this is a shooting.”
Fawcett, 28, an Odessa transportation consultant, “got out to make sure everyone was safe” but found that no one had been struck by the gunfire nearby. He said a little girl was bleeding, but she hadn’t been shot, and that he found out she was grazed in the face.
Fawcett said authorities responded quickly and when police pulled out their rifles and vests he knew that “this is not a drive-by. This is something else, this is something bigger.”
Vice President Mike Pence said following the shooting that President Donald Trump and his administration “remain absolutely determined” to work with leaders in both parties in Congress to take such steps “so we can address and confront this scourge of mass atrocities in our country.”
Pence said Trump has deployed the federal government in response to the shootings. Trump has spoken to the attorney general and that the FBI is already assisting local law enforcement.
Most recently, Trump has called for greater attention to mental health, saying that new facilities are needed for the mentally ill as a way to reduce mass shootings.
Odessa is about 20 miles southwest of Midland. Both are more than 300 miles west of Dallas.
The Associated Press contributed to this article