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Death Toll Likely Would Have Been Higher If Gunman Had Made It To Movie Theater, Local Officials Say
The 36-year-old man who terrorized two West Texas towns with an assault-style rifle Saturday had been fired from his trucking job a few hours before he led the authorities on a chaotic high-speed chase that ended with his death and the deaths of seven others. Along a 15-mile stretch between the sister cities of Midland and Odessa, the aftermath of the gunman鈥檚 rampage 鈥 in which he indiscriminately fired on motorists and police officers with an AR-15-style rifle while driving 鈥 clashed with the typically serene and dusty rural landscape of the region. (Holt and Fernandez, 9/1)
Monette Rodriguez remembers the oil field truck-driver who lived at the Peppertree Place Apartments. He had the phrase 鈥淥ilfield Mafia鈥 displayed on the back window of his blue Dodge Challenger. And he liked to party 鈥 neighbors complained that women made frequent visits at all hours of the night to his apartment. 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. (Mervosh, Holt and Fernandez, 9/2)
In a news conference Sunday, officials praised local law enforcement for stopping the shooter, speculating that he may have been heading into the Cinergy movie theater when he was killed. 鈥淲hy would you go to a theater if you鈥檙e not planning on going into the theater?鈥 Police Chief Michael Gerke said, adding that the movie theater is one of the most crowded places in Odessa on a Saturday. (Findell, 9/1)
The gunman in a West Texas rampage "was on a long spiral of going down" and had been fired from his oil services job the morning he killed seven people, calling 911 both before and after the shooting began, authorities said Monday. Officers killed 36-year-old Seth Aaron Ator on Saturday outside a busy Odessa movie theater after a spate of violence that spanned 10 miles, injuring at least 25 people in addition to the dead, authorities said. (9/2)
Authorities said Monday that Seth Aaron Ator, 36, had reached out to police and to the FBI after he was let go from Journey Oilfield Services. He and his employer called the Odessa Police Department that morning, police said. When police officers arrived at the company鈥檚 office, Ator had left. 鈥淏asically, they were complaining on each other鈥 over the firing, Odessa Police Chief Michael Gerke said. Ator did not make threats of violence. Later in the day, Ator left a 鈥渞ambling鈥 statement with an FBI tip line but did not make a specific threat, FBI special agent Christopher Combs said during a news conference Monday. (Guarino, 9/2)
"It was, frankly, rambling statements about some of the atrocities that he felt that he had gone through," explained FBI special agent Christopher Combs during a news conference in West Texas on Monday afternoon. "He did not make a threat during that phone call," Combs said. The agency initiated procedures "trying to figure out who he was, where he was," Combs said. "Unfortunately, it was only 15 minutes before the trooper was engaged." (Aubrey, 9/2)
The mother of a 17-month-old girl that was shot during the mass shooting in Odessa and Midland聽Saturday recently gave an emotional update on the status of her baby that is warming hearts across the state. Kelby Giesler Davis was sitting at a red light in Odessa when a bullet from the gunman, now identified as 36-year-old Seth Ator, went through her family's car, striking her baby girl Anderson in the mouth and chest. (Hennes, 9/2)
The names of the seven victims killed and the 25 injured in Saturday's mass shooting in Odessa and Midland are slowly being released to the public. The dead include a mail carrier and a high school sophomore. Among the wounded were a toddler, a father and members of law enforcement who were caught on the road when the gunman opened fire. (Emily, Branham and Steele, 9/2)
They gathered as the children they are near the statue of a cowboy-hat wearing Prairie Dog聽in Prairie Pete Playland Park. But they left radiating the best qualities of adulthood 鈥 defiance, determination and benevolence. Nearly 100 teens from聽two area high schools, Odessa High School and Permian High School, met Monday evening with the simple purpose of deciding how they could help the victims of Saturday鈥檚 mass shooting, which has left seven聽dead and 25 wounded. (Della Cava, Schroeder and Frank, 9/2)
