Posted on 09/02/2019 1:39:29 PM PDT by crusty old prospector
ODESSA, Texas (AP) — 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.”
Authorities said Ator killed seven people and injured at least 22 others Saturday before officers killed him outside a busy movie theater in Odessa.
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.
Online court records show Ator was arrested in 2001 for a misdemeanor offense that would not have prevented him from legally purchasing firearms in Texas, although authorities have not said where Ator got the “AR style” weapon he used.
(Excerpt) Read more at apnews.com ...
He was relatively recently divorced with nine children.
His father and mother got divorced when he was 3.
Lots of stress in his life.
Some people, in a large population, are on the edge. Add lots of media to make rampage shooters famous, combined with a rage at society because life has gone very bad for him...
And you get a blow-up.
The media coverage, trying to drive a wedge between Trump and the NRA, plus their desire for a huge blow to the Second Amendment, has been off the charts.
This has given us the larger than usual cluster of mass murder. The media has been pushing the “assault weapon” and AR-15 has the favored tool of mass killers, so we get more of them.
Did he really father nine children? I have seen it reported on the media a few times. What a lovely life they have ahead of them.
Exactly. This is why the red flag stuff is a red herring. Heck, you can have an enraged guy personally call the FBI, and nothing will be done. Would red flag laws change that? I doubt it. Red flag laws aren’t about crazy people. Red flag laws are just a tool to take guns away from everyone. It’s not about mental illness. It’s about disarmement.
The libertarian in me agrees no one should be in prison or put away until they act to commit a crime. But then again if someone is bat sh!t crazy and can hurt people we need to put them away.
The slippery slope is soon they will put us away because we’d be labelled crazy for not wanting gov’t to protect us by taking our guns.
Somehow we used to lock up people for being crazy. Not sure how we did it for so many years without government taking advantage.
The thing is people worry about the government locking up people for not agreeing politically, but the truth is by then things are on the brink already so they would lock us up anyway.
c.f. Arms Offenses Act 1973
https://www.loc.gov/law/help/firearms-control/singapore.php
The penalties start at 5 years in a Singapore jail and six strokes with the cane.
During a downturn in biz the company I worked for did all it’s firings on Fridays. The boss would call in the workers one at a time, fire them then leave the office for the rest of the day.
““This did not happen because he was fired. He showed up to work enraged,””
A statement like that is cause not to trust official statements. No one with a lick of sense would believe that the firing had nothing to do with his temperament. It could have very well have been what pushed him over the edge. No matter how angry he was before he was fired.
That being said- It in no way places any blame on his employer. The blame is 100% on the sicko who pulled the trigger.
Actually he went oil patch...
re: “Somehow we used to lock up people for being crazy.”
No - no, they weren’t “locked up” ... sedated and on meds, maybe (that wasn’t my direct bailiwick) ...
This would have been the mid 1970’s ...
What happened to that second shooter they were talking about in the first reports?
Ator did not call the FBI. No where in the story does it say he called the FBI.
The FBI agent describes only the rambling call made to 911, by both the killer and the “company “ who fired him.
Sounds like all the other shootings. The fog of war.
Well, the first sentence said he did. They just don’t elaborate. Unless it is just crappy journalism.
called both police and the FBI before the shooting began, authorities said Monday. HELLO HELLO...........did anyone kinda check this guy out? pay him a visit? see what he’s up to?
Recently divorced is probably the key element here.
I strongly suspect there’s another shoe yet to drop in this case.
When we were full time RVing, it occurred to me that this lifestyle would keep one away from the authorities for as long as one wanted to be off the grid.
Why was he fired?
As one poster said before, they were still looking for a Russia connection to Trump.
Thanks Geraldo
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