Cops: Ex-Utah Trooper a Suspect in Dallas Rush Hour Shootings

nbcdfw. ^ | Updated 12:39 AM CST, Wed, Dec 24, 2008

[dennisw]

Dallas police said Tuesday early tests connect a former Utah state trooper to Monday's series of rush-hour shootings in Garland and Dallas.

Two people were killed and another was injured in the shootings Monday evening.

Dallas police said they think Brian Smith, 37, a former Utah trooper who shot himself early Tuesday morning during a standoff in Garland, shot and killed a big-rig driver in Dallas. They declined to comment on the other death in neighboring Garland because it was outside their jurisdiction.

"I certainly believe that he is going to be linked to the Dallas offenses -- the three shootings that occurred in the city of Dallas," Dallas police Lt. Craig Miller said. "Right now, I can't definitely say that he's involved in the Garland shooting."

Smith was in critical condition Tuesday night at a Dallas hospital from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Police said he shot himself in the head early Tuesday morning after a brief standoff with police more than six hours after the shooting spree ended.

Smith had been stopped by Garland police on outstanding robbery and burglary warrants. Authorities said police did not know at the time that he may be connected to the highway shootings.

Miller said preliminary ballistics tests connected Smith to the killing in Dallas because the bullets from the standoff were a match. The weapon was a high-caliber semiautomatic handgun, Miller said.

"We feel safe in saying (Smith) ... was the shooter," he said.

Garland police spokesman Joe Harn said his department has not been able to make a definitive connection between Smith and the killing there, but acknowledged that he fit the description of the highway shooter: a balding, 40ish white man.

"We certainly hope it is him," Harn said. "But we are going to have to see more concrete evidence."