Texas gunman was reportedly fired hours before deadly rampage

[TheCount]

Investigators are trying to figure out why a man armed with an assault-style weapon went on a chaotic and deadly shooting rampage in Texas on Saturday. The violence stretched more than 10 miles across the heart of Texas oil country.

Police say seven people were killed, ranging in age from 15 to 57. At least 22 others were hurt.

The gunman was let go from his job at a trucking company Saturday morning, just hours before the shooting, according to CBS Dallas-Fort Worth Station KTVT.


https://www.cbsnews.com/news/odessa-shooting-gunman-fired-hours-before-rampage/



Maybe if those people didn't want to be murdered, somebody should have given him a job and not told him that it was a 'please don't kill us' job.

[Zippyjuan]

I noted that in the other thread http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?538694-TX-Shooter-hijacks-postal-truck-kills-five-injures-over-20/page2

and speculated that maybe he was going to shoot up his workplace (or some other target) in retaliation when the cops pulled him over on his way there. Most shootings are over perceived wrongs against the shooter. He was certainly carrying around a bit of firepower and ammo to have just been driving around.

[Brian4Liberty]

Breaking: Texas shooter was wearing a red MAGA hat and was heard to shout "send them back". A manifesto published five minutes before he started his rampage expressed hate and revealed white nationalist affiliations.

https://nypost.com/2019/09/01/texas-mass-shooter-threatened-neighbor-shot-animals-from-roof-dnc-report/








Update 1: Correction, his hat was blue, and had "Kamala 2020" written on it.
Update 2: Correction, his manifesto mentioned "The White Stripes", which is assumed to be code for a white nationalist.
Update 3: Nevermind (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ).

[Swordsmyth]

You won't hear much more about him because there are several reports he was a leftist.

[Swordsmyth]

The gunman in a spate of violence after a routine traffic stop in West Texas had just been fired from his job and called both police and the FBI before the shooting began, authorities said Monday.Odessa Police Chief Michael Gerke said 36-year-old Seth Aaron Ator had been fired Saturday from Journey Oilfield Services. He said both Ator and the company called 911 after the firing but that Ator was gone by the time police showed up. FBI special agent Christopher Combs says Ator’s statements on the phone were “rambling.”


Combs said Ator “was on a long spiral down” before the shooting and that he went to work that day “in trouble.”
“This did not happen because he was fired. He showed up to work enraged,” said FBI special agent Christopher Combs of the suspected shooter.
Combs said the place where Ator lived was “a strange residence” and that the condition reflected “what his mental state was going into this.” He didn’t elaborate.

More at: https://apnews.com/42014c1117d24ec0a7ebbfb68c68ea67

[Zippyjuan]

You won't hear much more about him because there are several reports he was a leftist.

The shooting doesn't seem to have been at all political.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/02/us/west-texas-shooting-monday/index.html


Both Seth Ator and his employer, Journey Oilfield Services, called 911 right after the firing, Odessa Police Chief Michael Gerke said.

"Basically, they were complaining on each other because they had a disagreement over the firing," Gerke said at a press conference Monday.

Shortly before being stopped by a Department of Public Safety trooper, Ator also called the FBI national tip line, but he made "no threats of any type of violence," Gerke said.

Ator had applied to get a gun but failed a background check, a representative for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said at the Monday press conference.

The ATF, the FBI and the DPS are "aggressively following up on" the source that supplied the firearm to Ator.

Authorities have repeatedly cautioned that they have yet to establish a motive for the shooting. They say they believe Ator acted alone.


Ator's call to the FBI before his encounter with the troopers included "rambling statements about some of the atrocities that he felt he had gone through," said Christopher Combs, FBI special agent in charge.

The troopers who stopped Ator for a traffic violation Saturday did not know about the calls.

[Swordsmyth]

The shooting doesn't seem to have been at all political.
But his politics still get in the way of the narrative that attempts to paint conservatives as evil.

[Zippyjuan]

Updated photo of the shooter:

https://dynaimage.cdn.cnn.com/cnn/digital-images/org/3cb8a94b-2814-4da5-aab0-43b3433a453c.PNG


Combs said Ator “was on a long spiral down” before the shooting and that he went to work that day “in trouble.”

“This did not happen because he was fired. He showed up to work enraged,” said FBI special agent Christopher Combs of the suspected shooter.

Combs said the place where Ator lived was “a strange residence” and that the condition reflected “what his mental state was going into this.” He didn’t elaborate.

Image of the outside of his residence (yes, it is that corrugated aluminum thing with the box on top) :

https://img.thedailybeast.com/image/upload/c_crop,d_placeholder_euli9k/dpr_1.5/c_limit,w_690/fl_lossy,q_auto/_JMH6447_ytbyqh

[Zippyjuan]

But his politics still get in the way of the narrative that attempts to paint conservatives as evil.

The El Paso shooting was politically motivated- this one was not.

[donnay]

Texas spree shooter Seth Ator called cops, FBI shortly before massacre
By Aaron FeisSeptember 2, 2019 | 4:26pm | Updated


Texas mass shooter Seth Ator made a pair of “rambling” phone calls to local cops and the FBI shortly before his rampage that left seven people dead — but gave no indication of the bloodshed he was about to unleash, authorities said Monday.

When Ator, 36, showed up for work Saturday as a trucker at Journey Oil Field Services, he was told that he’d been canned, officials confirmed in a press briefing.

“Right after that firing, he called 911 … and so did his employer,” said Odessa Police Chief Michael Gerke. “Basically they were complaining on each other.”

Ator, who made no threats in the call, split before cops arrived, then placed another call to the FBI’s national tip line.

“It was frankly rambling statements about some of the atrocities that he felt he had gone through,” said Bureau Special Agent in Charge Christopher Combs. “He did not make a threat during that phone call.”

But just 15 minutes after that second call, state troopers tried to pull over Ator for a minor traffic infraction, setting off a brutal chain of events.

Ator raised his AR-style rifle and wounded one of the troopers, then peeled off toward Odessa, indiscriminately firing at motorists and pedestrians along his path of destruction.

In Odessa, he shot dead and carjacked a USPS mail carrier, continuing his tear in her van until he was forced to a stop in the parking lot of a movie theater and shot dead by cops.

Despite the new information, authorities stressed that the investigation was ongoing and stopped short of saying they’d identified Ator’s motive.

“He was on a long spiral of going down,” said Combs, not elaborating on Ator’s descent. “He didn’t wake up Saturday morning and walk into his company and then it happened.

“He went into that company in trouble.”
https://nypost.com/2019/09/02/texas-spree-shooter-seth-ator-called-cops-fbi-shortly-before-massacre/

[Swordsmyth]

The El Paso shooting was politically motivated- this one was not.
Yes, the El Paso guy was a leftist with a political motivation and this one was a leftist with an unknown motivation that hasn't been determined to be political.

[Zippyjuan]

Yes, the El Paso guy was a leftist with a political motivation and this one was a leftist with an unknown motivation that hasn't been determined to be political.

El Paso shooter was targeting Hispanics because he heard immigrants were bad- a point Trump has been pushing for years.

[Swordsmyth]

El Paso shooter was targeting Hispanics because he heard immigrants were bad- a point Trump has been pushing for years.
He thought they were bad for environmental reasons and he didn't want to share welfare with them.
He also wanted to provoke gun control.
He was a leftist.

[GunnyFreedom]

El Paso shooter was targeting Hispanics because he heard immigrants were bad- a point Trump has been pushing for years.

I have personally with my own eyes seen several orders of magnitude more racism from the left than than I ever have from the right. The fact that he was targeting racial minorities does not make it any less likely that the shooter was a leftist.

[Zippyjuan]

I have personally with my own eyes seen several orders of magnitude more racism from the left than than I ever have from the right. The fact that he was targeting racial minorities does not make it any less likely that the shooter was a leftist.

Both sides have their intolerant extremists.

[Swordsmyth]

Both sides have their intolerant extremists.
One side has FAR more than the other, your side.

[GunnyFreedom]

Both sides have their intolerant extremists.
Sure they do. Still, I have personally with my own two eyes seen way way way more racism on the left than the right. So the fact that the shooter was targeting Hispanics says literally nothing about whether he was a leftist or a rightist, but using the datapoint to claim conservatism is particularly troubling because minority targeting is more likely to be leftist than rightist, simply due to population.

[Occam's Banana]

Both sides have their intolerant extremists.

They certainly do.

But the left side seems to have a lot more of them.

[Zippyjuan]

https://www.texastribune.org/2019/09/03/odessa-texas-shooter-bought-gun-private-sale-without-background-check/


Reports: Odessa shooter bought gun via private sale without background check

ABC News reported that the shooter had failed a previous gun purchase background check because he had been diagnosed with a mental illness.

The 36-year-old man who fatally shot seven people and wounded 22 others in West Texas on Saturday purchased his weapon in a private person-to-person sale, allowing him to avoid a background check, according to multiple reports Tuesday.

The shooter, Seth Aaron Ator, was federally barred from possessing a firearm, ABC News reported. But in Texas, person-to-person sales do not require background checks.

Authorities say Ator used a rifle in a shooting spree in Odessa and Midland soon after being fired from his job. The rampage began after two Texas Department of Public Safety troopers pulled him over for a traffic violation and he shot and wounded one of the troopers. He then began driving around Midland and Odessa, randomly firing at people. At some point he ditched his car, fatally shot a 29-year-old U.S. Postal Service letter carrier and continued shooting people from the postal van.

Details of how the rifle was purchased came a day after Gov. Greg Abbott said the shooter previously failed a gun purchase background check, though Abbott didn't say why. A DPS spokesperson said Tuesday that the failed purchase happened in 2014, but didn't disclose a reason.

More at link.

[Swordsmyth]

https://www.texastribune.org/2019/09/03/odessa-texas-shooter-bought-gun-private-sale-without-background-check/



More at link.

And?

Illegal sales will continue to take place no matter what you do.