West Texas shooter cantacted 911, cops, FBI before rampage
US authorizes have revealed that the gunman behind a shooting rampage in western Texas on Saturday which left seven people dead and 23 others injured had called police, the FBI and 911 dispatchers before the incident.
Authorities said on Monday that hours before randomly shooting at people across the West Texas sister cities of Midland and Odessa, Seth Aaron Ator, 36, had been fired from his job.
Odessa Police Department Chief Michael Gerke said Ator contacted the police and the FBI after he was let go from Journey Oilfield Services were he was a truck driver.
Immediately afterward, both the gunman and representatives of the company called 911, each lodging complaints against the other, Gerke said, adding, Ator had already left his workplace by the time police arrived.
“Basically, they were complaining on each other,” Gerke concluded.
FBI Special Agent Christopher Combs described Ator’s call to the bureau as “rambling statements about some of the atrocities that he felt he had gone through.”
The FBI Special Agent claimed Ator's firing had not been his primary motive for the mass shooting.
“When he showed up to work, he was already enraged,” Combs said, adding, “it is not because he got fired.”
Officials have yet to confirm Ator's motive for the mass shooting.
The latest shooting spree was the second mass shooting in Texas within the space of just four weeks.
The first mass killing was at a Walmart department store in El Paso on August 3.
That incident, which left 22 people dead, was attributed to provocative anti-immigrant remarks by US President Donald Trump.
Experts believe Trump's controversial remarks and anti-immigrant policies have fueled hatred and increased violence in the US society.
In the meantime, leading Democrats have called for stricter gun laws, introducing legislation that would expand background checks on gun purchases, in an effort to curtail the gun violence across the US.
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