Five people were killed and at least 21 people have been injured after shooting from a suspect in the cities of Midland and Odessa, Texas on Saturday night,
According to CNN report, the incident began with an attempted traffic stop by the Texas Department of Public Safety.
Two separate vehicles were used in the incident: a gold/white small Toyota truck and a USPS Postal van. One vehicle is believed to be at the Cinergy in Odessa, while the other is on Loop 250 in Midland.
While first reports stated that there were two shooters involved in the incident, local police later reported that there was most likely only one shooter who had started out in the Toyota truck and then hijacked a USPS van.
The suspect is a white male in his mid-30s.
10 people were shot in Midland while another 20 people were shot in Odessa, tweeted CBS correspondent David Begnaud.
Midland and Odessa are about 20 miles apart in West Texas.
2 people, one Midland police officer and one Texas Department of Public Safety officer were among those shot, according to CNN.
“The First Lady and I are heartbroken over this senseless and cowardly attack, and we offer our unwavering support to the victims, their families, and all the people of Midland and Odessa,” said Texas Governor Greg Abbott, according to CNN.
“The state of Texas and the Department of Public Safety are working closely with local law enforcement to provide resources as needed and deliver justice for this heinous attack.”
“I thank the first responders who have acted swiftly and admirably under pressure, and I want to remind all Texans that we will not allow the Lone Star State to be overrun by hatred and violence,” said Abbott. “We will unite, as Texans always do, to respond to this tragedy.”
In August, 20 people were killed in a shooting at a Walmart store in El Paso, Texas.
The massacre came just six days after the last major outbreak of US gun violence in a public place – a food festival in California where a teenager killed three people with an assault rifle and injured a dozen others before taking his own life in a hail of police gunfire.
The Texas killings were followed just 13 hours later by another mass shooting in Dayton, Ohio, where a gunman in body armor killed nine people in less than a minute and wounded 27 others in the city’s downtown historic district before he was shot dead by police.