HOUSTON – Police have identified the suspect in the west Houston mass shooting as a 25-year-old former soldier from California who has served in Afghanistan, even as the death toll has reached two.
Dionisio Garza III of San Bernardino county, who was shot dead by a SWAT officer, had previously served in the military and was posted in Afghanistan.
He had recently expressed anti-government sentiments. He was discharged from active duty in 2014, and has no criminal history.
A second man identified as Byron Wilson is no longer a suspect and was in fact a good samaritan trying to help in the shooting. He was shot by Garza as he tried to help and fight back. He was critically injured but is expected to survive.
Two persons were killed, including the suspect, and six others were injured in the Sunday’s shooting.
The medical examiner yesterday identified the second deceased in the shooting as Eugene Linscomb.
One of the survivors was saved in part by a 17-year-old Boy Scout. Nick Latiolais was driving with his mom to a doctor’s appointment when he saw a group of people surrounding a man lying on the road.
“He was in like, a lot of pain. He was screaming a lot. He was just saying, Help me! Help me! and he was grabbing his leg and I saw some blood around one of his legs,” Latiolais said.
The man was one of the seven innocent gunshot victims. Latiolais rendered aid as the shooting rampage was underway.
The motive behind the shooting is unknown.
Shortly after Garza graduated from high school, he joined the Army and was deployed to Afghanistan.
His father, who shares the same name, said his son was changed by what he saw, and was troubled by the deaths of several friends during his deployment. He recalled his son calling him in the middle of the night, telling him that he “felt like he couldn’t love anymore” and that he felt “like a blank sheet of paper.”
In the days before Garza allegedly opened fire in a West Houston neighborhood, his family noticed that he became obsessed with conspiracies that the dollar was collapsing and the world was about to end.
“Just in the last two weeks, it progressively got worse. It was not the same boy that we raised. Not the loving uncle, the loving brother,” his father said.
Garza’s sister said he told her that he was going to Texas to visit a friend who served with him in the Army, asking her to come with him for fear that his family would die if she didn’t.
Garza’s stepmother, Cathy Garza, told ABC News she thinks he might have had post-traumatic stress disorder.”I think he was haunted by everything he experienced there. I think it changes you,” she said. “I don’t know how you can go through what he went through and see what he saw and not have it change you or affect you.”
One of the deceased is a suspect who was shot by a SWAT officer. The other is a citizen who was shot and killed inside a vehicle, police said.
According to authorities, the civilian was in his 50s and was a customer at an auto detail shop where the suspect shot him with a pistol. The suspect was also armed with an AR-15 that was used to shoot at officers.
Three civilians, two men and one woman, were among the wounded. Their injuries are not life-threatening. Two officers were also wounded. One was shot in the hand while the other was shot in the chest but was saved by his his bullet-proof vest.
The first officer who pulled up to the scene was immediately shot at, leaving 21 bullet holes in his windshield. An Houston Police Department (HPD) helicopter also had five bullet strikes.
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