Seth Ator
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Seth Aaron Ator (September 27, 1982 - August 31, 2019) was an American mass shooter responsible for committing a drive-by spree shooting between Odessa and Midland, Texas on August 31, 2019. Eight people, including Ator, were killed, and 24, including three police officers, were injured. It was the third mass killing to take place in the United States in August 2019, along with the El Paso Walmart shooting and the Dayton shooting. Police later apprehended and killed Ator outside a movie theater. His motive for committing the shooting remains unknown at this time.
Background edit
The shooting spree began at 3:17 p.m. during a traffic stop on Interstate 20, where a Texas state trooper was shot while attempting to stop a Honda over a failure to signal a left turn. The suspect continued into Odessa, Texas, and shot another person on the Interstate. In Odessa, he abandoned the Honda, hijacked a United States Postal Service truck, killed the letter carrier, and continued to drive and shoot people before police cornered and killed him in the parking lot of a Cinergy movie theater.
He had previously been arrested in Waco, Texas in 2001 for trespassing and evading arrest to which he pled guilty in 2002. The police stated that Ator used an AR-15 type weapon in the shooting, but did not provide any information about how he obtained the gun.
Agents searched his home located west of Odessa. A neighbor of Ator, Veronica Alonzo reported that Ator's home had no basic utilities and sometimes would see him sitting in his car to get warm when the weather was cold. Ator had no online "footprint" and no relatives have been reached for comment. He grew up in Lorena, Texas, and attended a community college in Waco.
Veronica Alonzo, one of Ator's neighbors, claimed that she had been threatened by him carrying a big rifle and reported him to police. She claimed he had a shooting structure on his roof from which he shot multiple animals, and that the police never came because the shooter's home was not on GPS and was hard to locate.
On September 1, the FBI confirmed that they were executing a federal search warrant at the suspect's house, located about 20 minutes west of Odessa.
On September 2, at a press conference authorities revealed Ator was fired from his job at Journey Oil Field Services and called both police and the FBI before the mass shooting began. FBI special agent Christopher Combs said statements made by Ator on the FBI tip line were "rambling."
Victims edit
- Joseph Griffith - September 13, 1978 (40 years)
- Mary Granados - December 12, 1989 (29 years)
- Edwin Peregrino - September 8, 1993 (25 years)
- Rodolfo Julio Arco - April 17, 1962 (57 years)
- Kameron Karltess Brown - March 22, 1989 (30 years)
- Raul Garcia - January 4, 1985 (34 years)
- Leilah Hernandez - May 4, 2004 (15 years)