Police: 7 killed, 22 injured in West Texas shooting rampage

ODESSA, Texas (AP) — Authorities said Sunday they still could not explain why a man with an AR-style weapon opened fire during a routine traffic stop in West Texas to begin a terrifying rampage that killed seven people, injured 22 others and ended with officers gunning him down outside a movie theater.The shooter was identified as Seth Aaron Ator, 36, of Odessa. He also said there were still no answers pointing to a motive.The shooting began Saturday afternoon with an interstate traffic stop where gunfire was exchanged with police, setting off a chaotic rampage during which the suspect hijacked a mail carrier truck and fired at random as he drove in the area of Odessa and Midland, two cities in the heart of Texas oil country more than 300 miles (483 kilometers) west of Dallas.U.S. Postal Service officials said Mary Granados, 29, was alone in her mail carrier truck and killed in the attack. A 17-month-old girl who was wounded in the shooting will undergo surgery Monday to remove shrapnel from her right chest but is recovering, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said.Combs said the gunman might have entered the Odessa movie theater where the chase ended if police had not taken him down.“In the midst of a man driving down the highway shooting at people, local law enforcement and state troopers pursued him and stopped him from possibly going into a crowded movie theater and having another event of mass violence,” Combs said.The shooting came at the end of an already violent month in Texas, where on Aug. 3 a gunman in the border city of El Paso killed 22 people at a Walmart.