Officer, gunman among 3 killed in Texas shootings

MICHAEL GRACZYK

Asso­ci­ated Press

COLLEGE STATION, Texas — A deadly shootout erupted Mon­day near the Texas A&M Uni­ver­sity cam­pus when a man being brought an evic­tion notice opened fire on a Texas law enforce­ment offi­cer, leav­ing three peo­ple dead, includ­ing the offi­cer and the gunman.

Police say Thomas Alton Caf­fall, 35, opened fire on Bra­zos County Con­sta­ble Brian Bach­mann just after noon as the law­man brought an evic­tion notice. Both men were later pro­nounced dead at a hospital.

A 43-year-old man was the third per­son killed in the shoot­ings at an off-campus home not far from the university’s foot­ball sta­dium, Col­lege Sta­tion Assis­tant Police Chief Scott McCol­lum said. Three other law enforce­ment offi­cers and a 55-year-old woman were wounded, he said.

Caffall’s sis­ter said Mon­day night the fam­ily was “shocked” by the violence.

“Our hearts and prayers go out to the fam­i­lies and this is just a sense­less tragedy,” said Court­ney Clark, Caffall’s sis­ter, reached Mon­day evening at her mother’s home in Nava­sota, about 20 miles to the south. “We are just dis­traught by the havoc that he has caused.”

She declined addi­tional comment.

Offi­cers respond­ing Mon­day after­noon to reports of an offi­cer down saw Bach­mann wounded on the ground in the front yard, then got into what McCol­lum described as an extended shootout with Caf­fall, who even­tu­ally was shot.

Police spokes­woman Rhonda Seaton said Chris North­cliff was out­side the home when he was shot, as was the wounded woman, whose name had not been released by Mon­day evening.

The woman was hos­pi­tal­ized in seri­ous con­di­tion fol­low­ing surgery. One of the injured offi­cers, Justin Oehlkee, was treated for a gun­shot wound in the calf and was in sta­ble con­di­tion, Seaton said. Two other offi­cers — Brad Smith and Phil Dorsett, were treated for “shrap­nel injuries” and released, Seaton said.

Police declined to spec­u­late on a motive for the gunfire.

The shoot­ings prompted Texas A&M to issue an emer­gency alert warn­ing stu­dents and res­i­dents to stay away from the area. Most of the university’s 50,000 stu­dents were not on the cam­pus about 90 miles north­west of Hous­ton because the fall semes­ter doesn’t start until Aug. 27, uni­ver­sity spokes­woman Shery­lon Car­roll said.

Diana Har­bourt, 27, who lives about a block from where the shoot­ings hap­pened, said she heard five loud pop­ping sounds from a back room of her home look­ing out her front door to see an offi­cer park his vehi­cle on the street and crouch in front of another vehicle.

“We heard him exchang­ing some words with the per­son and then shots being fired,” Har­bourt said. “And then we heard more sirens and more offi­cers and fire trucks came and they were keep­ing their dis­tance, kind of slowly mov­ing in. More offi­cers showed up and told us to stay inside.”

Offi­cers, mean­while, were deal­ing with los­ing some­one McCol­lum called a respected colleague.

“Brian Bach­mann was very close to every­one in law enforce­ment,” McCol­lum said. “He was a pil­lar in this com­mu­nity, and it’s sad and tragic that we’ve lost him today.”

Bach­mann worked more than 19 years in law enforce­ment, accord­ing to the Texas Com­mis­sion on Law Enforce­ment Offi­cer Stan­dards and Edu­ca­tion. He started out with the Hemp­stead Police Depart­ment before spend­ing most of his career with the Bra­zos County Sheriff’s Office. He had been a con­sta­ble since Jan­u­ary 2011, after win­ning elec­tion to the post the prior November.

In a Feb­ru­ary 2010 can­di­date pro­file in the Bryan-College Sta­tion Eagle, the mar­ried father of two said he wanted to bring “con­sta­bles back to the com­mu­nity” by actively patrolling neigh­bor­hoods to dis­cour­age crime.

Con­sta­bles are law enforce­ment offi­cers sim­i­lar to sheriff’s deputies who are elected to serve in spe­cific county precincts. They pri­mar­ily serve war­rants and offi­cial paper­work or act as court­room bailiffs.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry, an A&M alum­nus, said at an event in Florida that his “prayers are with any of those that have been injured.” A&M Pres­i­dent R. Bowen Loftin issued a state­ment call­ing Mon­day a “sad day in the Bryan-College Sta­tion community.”

Posted by AP News on Aug 13 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.