This archive report was first published on 1 September 2019.
On Labor Day weekend, a series of shootings in West Texas left a trail of death and destruction, claiming the lives of at least five people and injuring 21 others.
The attacks, which took place near the cities of Odessa and Midland, began as a traffic stop and involved one or two gunmen in a hijacked postal van and a pickup truck.
According to Chief Michael Gerke of the Odessa Police Department, the gunman, a white male in his mid-30s, was dead, and three law enforcement officers were shot. The motive behind the attack was not immediately clear.
‘We do believe we have the threat contained but I can’t be 1,000 percent sure of that,’ Chief Gerke said at a news conference on Saturday evening.
The mayor of Midland, Jerry Morales, confirmed that the shootings began shortly after 4 p.m. local time, with motorists targeted on Interstate 20 and Highway 191.
As the situation unfolded, the police in Odessa warned on Facebook that a gunman — or possibly two — was driving around ‘shooting at random people.’
Ernest Villanueva, a 24-year-old Marine Corps veteran, witnessed the aftermath of the shootings, describing the scene as ‘so surprised it happened so soon with the recent events of El Paso.’
