AP source: Texas shooter purchased AK rifle at private sale
By PAUL J. WEBER, JAKE BLEIBERG and MICHAEL BALSAMO Associated Press
ODESSA, Texas (AP) — The gunman in a West Texas rampage that left seven dead obtained his AR-style rifle through a private sale, allowing him to evade a federal background check that previously blocked him from getting a gun, a law enforcement official told The Associated Press.
The official spoke to The Associated Press Tuesday on condition of anonymity because the person was not authorized to discuss an ongoing investigation.
Officers killed 36-year-old Seth Aaron Ator on Saturday outside a busy Odessa movie theater after a spate of violence that spanned 10 miles (16 kilometers), injuring around two dozen people in addition to the dead.
Authorities said Ator “was on a long spiral of going down” and had been fired from his oil services job the morning of the shooting, and that he called 911 both before and after the rampage began.
Ator had previously failed a federal background check for a firearm, said John Wester, an agent with the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. Wester did not say when Ator failed the background check or why.
Online court records show Ator was arrested in 2001 for a misdemeanor offense that would not have prevented him from legally purchasing firearms in Texas. Federal law defines nine categories that would legally prevent a person from owning a gun, which include being convicted of a felony, a misdemeanor domestic violence charge, being adjudicated as a “mental defect” or committed to a mental institution, the subject of a restraining order or having an active warrant. Authorities have said Ator had no active warrants at the time of the shooting.
FBI special agent Christopher Combs said Monday that Ator called the agency’s tip line as well as local police dispatch on Saturday after being fired from Journey Oilfield Services, making “rambling statements about some of the atrocities that he felt that he had gone through.”
“He was on a long spiral of going down,” Combs said. “He didn’t wake up Saturday morning and walk into his company and then it happened. He went to that company in trouble.”
Fifteen minutes after the call to the FBI, Combs said, a Texas state trooper unaware of the calls to authorities tried pulling over Ator for failing to signal a lane change. That was when Ator pointed an AR-style rifle toward the rear window of his car and fired on the trooper, starting a terrifying police chase as Ator sprayed bullets into passing cars, shopping plazas and killed a U.S. Postal Service employee while hijacking her mail truck.
Combs said Ator “showed up to work enraged” but did not point to any specific source of his anger. Ator’s home on the outskirts of Odessa was a corrugated metal shack along a dirt road surrounded by trailers, mobile homes and oil pump jacks. On Monday, a green car without a rear windshield was parked out front, the entire residence cordoned off by police tape.
Combs described it as a “strange residence” that reflected “what his mental state was going into this.” Combs said he did not know whether Ator had been diagnosed with any prior mental health problems.
A neighbor, Rocio Gutierrez, told The Associated Press that Ator was “a violent, aggressive person” that would shoot at animals, mostly rabbits, at all hours of the night
“We were afraid of him because you could tell what kind of person he was just by looking at him,” Gutierrez said. “He was not nice, he was not friendly, he was not polite.”
The daylight attack over the Labor Day holiday weekend came just weeks after another mass shooting killed 22 people in the Texas border city of El Paso.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott tweeted Monday that “we must keep guns out of criminals’ hands” — words similar to his remarks that followed the El Paso shooting on Aug. 3, when he said firearms must be kept from “deranged killers.” But Abbott, a Republican and avid gun rights supporter, has been noncommittal about tightening Texas gun laws.
Odessa Police Chief Michael Gerke said Ator’s company also called 911 on Saturday after Ator was fired but that Ator had already taken off by the time police showed up.
“Basically, they were complaining on each other because they had a disagreement over the firing,” Gerke said.
Gerke said he believes Ator had also been recently fired from a different job but did not have any details.
Authorities said they remain unable to provide an exact timeline of the shooting, including how much time passed between the traffic stop at 3:13 p.m. and police killing Ator at the movie theater.
Odessa officials Monday released the names of those killed, who were between 15 and 57 years old. Among the dead were Edwin Peregrino, 25, who ran out of his parents’ home to see what the commotion was; mail carrier Mary Granados, 29, slain in her U.S. Postal Service truck; and 15-year-old high school student Leilah Hernandez, who was walking out of an auto dealership.
Ator fired at random as he drove in the area of Odessa and Midland, cities more than 300 miles (482 kilometers) west of Dallas. Police used a marked SUV to ram the mail truck outside the Cinergy Movie Theater in Odessa, disabling the vehicle. The gunman then fired at police, wounding two officers before he was killed.
Police said Ator’s arrest in 2001 was in the county where Waco is located, hundreds of miles east of Odessa. Online court records show he was charged then with misdemeanor criminal trespass and evading arrest. He entered guilty pleas in a deferred prosecution agreement where the charge was waived after he served 24 months of probation, according to records.
The number of mass killings so far this year has already eclipsed the total for all of last year. A teenager suspected of killing five family members in Alabama brought the total to 26 mass killings in 2019, claiming the lives of 147 people, compared with 25 mass killings and 142 deaths in 2018, according to a database by The Associated Press, USA Today and Northeastern University. The database tracks homicides where four or more people are killed, not including the offender.
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Weber reported from Austin and Balsamo reported from Washington. Associated Press journalists Meghan Hoyer and Michael Biesecker in Washington and Tim Talley in Oklahoma City contributed to this report.

The Latest: Relative: 5 members of same family on boat
SANTA BARBARA, Calif. (AP) — The Latest on the fire aboard a diving boat near a Southern California island that is believed to have killed 34 people (all times local):
1 p.m.
A relative says five people from one Northern California family are missing and presumed dead after the scuba diving boat they were on burned near a Southern California island.
Susana Rosas posted on social media Tuesday that her three daughters, their father and stepmother were on board the Conception when it caught fire before dawn Monday morning.
Thirty four people are presumed dead in the fire and the search for survivors has been suspended. Five of the boat’s six crew members escaped.
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11:45 a.m.
The initial critical moments of the deadly fire that engulfed a dive boat off Southern California are still under investigation.
Santa Barbara County Sheriff Bill Brown said Tuesday there were apparently several mayday radio calls before dawn Monday.
Brown says the first call may have come from the burning vessel Conception, on which 34 people in below-decks accommodations are believed to have died.
He says subsequent calls may have come from a nearby boat that picked up five crew members who survived.
In one radio exchange, a Coast Guard radio communicator asked if people were locked inside the boat and whether the person could get back aboard the Conception and unlock doors. The replies to those questions are not on the recording.
Coast Guard Capt. Monica Rochester says there are no door locks in berthing spaces on such vessels.
Rochester says she interviewed the radio communicator and says he was actually trying to ask for information during a confusing situation.
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11:20 a.m.
A Northern California school has confirmed that it had students and parents on board a dive boat that caught fire near an island off the Southern California coast.
Thirty four people are presumed dead in the fire and the search has been suspended.
Maria C. Reitano is the head of Pacific Collegiate School in Santa Cruz and declined Tuesday to say how many students or parents were on board the Conception. She says the trip was not school-sponsored.
In a statement posted on its website, the school says “our hearts and thoughts are with the families of the victims and those yet missing, particularly those of our students and parents on board.”
Reitano and the school asked for privacy.
Pacific Collegiate School is a college preparation public charter school for grades 7-12.
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11:15 a.m.
Authorities say the people killed when fire engulfed a dive boat off Southern California will have to be identified through DNA.
Santa Barbara County Sheriff Bill Brown said Tuesday the fire that gutted the vessel Conception early Monday was extraordinarily hot.
The sheriff says most victims appear to have been from Northern California, including Santa Cruz, San Jose and the San Francisco Bay region.
Brown says he doesn’t have exact information on the victims’ ages but cited anecdotal reports of a 17-year-old and some adults in their 60s.
All 34 people who were below decks when the fire erupted are believed to have died. Remains of 20 have been recovered and as many as six more bodies have been seen still in the submerged wreck.
Five crew members were rescued by a nearby boat after jumping in the ocean.
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10:55 a.m.
Authorities say crew members who escaped from the dive boat that burned near a Southern California island have submitted written statements to officials.
Santa Barbara County Sheriff Bill Brown declined to disclose details of that they said because investigation is ongoing into the fire that officials presume killed 33 scuba dive trip passengers and one crew member.
Brown also says the surviving crew members will be interviewed on Tuesday.
He says there’s no indication that the fire was preceded by an explosion.
Brown says explosions a witness on another boat reported happened after the fire was underway and could have been scuba or propane tanks exploding.
A search for survivors has been suspended.
— This corrects that the sheriff said scuba tanks not oxygen tanks.
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10:40 a.m.
Officials say there’s no indication anyone who was below decks escaped when fire erupted on a dive boat off Southern California.
Santa Barbara County Sheriff Bill Brown announced the news Tuesday as the Coast Guard and other agencies suspended the search for additional survivors beyond the five crew members who were rescued early Monday morning off Santa Cruz Island.
There were believed to be 33 passengers and one crew member sleeping below decks at the time. They are presumed dead.
Brown says it appears that the berthing quarters exit and an escape hatch were blocked by fire.
The cause of the fire remains under investigation.
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10:16 a.m.
Thirty four people are presumed dead in the California dive boat fire and the search has been suspended.
Santa Barbara County Bill Brown said Tuesday that the bodies of 20 victims have been recovered and divers have seen between and four and six others in the sunken wreckage, which must be stabilized.
Brown says the recovered remains include 11 females and nine males and DNA will be used to identify them.
Thirty-nine people including six crew members were aboard the vessel Conception when it caught fire early Monday morning while anchored off Santa Cruz Island.
Five crew members jumped in the ocean and were rescued.
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8:20 a.m.
Authorities say divers are working in pairs at the site where a diving boat sank near a Southern California island after it was engulfed in flames.
Commander Jay Donovan of the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Office said Tuesday that the divers from multiple law enforcement agencies are using their hands because of limited visibility and search in grids as they look for nine people who are still missing. Officials have confirmed that 25 people died.
There were 39 people aboard the Conception when it caught fire before dawn Monday as recreational scuba divers slept in bunks below deck.
Five of the boat’s six crew members escaped and used a dinghy to get to a nearby boat.
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7:35 a.m.
The dozens of passengers aboard the dive boat gutted by fire off the Southern California included a 41-year-old marine biologist with years of diving experience.
Kristy Finstad has been identified by her brother Brett Harmeling of Houston as among those aboard the vessel Conception when it was engulfed in flames early Monday off Santa Cruz Island.
Harmeling says in a Facebook post that his sister was leading the dive trip and he asks for prayers.
Harmeling described his sister to the Los Angeles Times as extremely strong-willed and adventurous.
There were 39 people aboard the Conception, including six crew members.
Authorities say five crew members were rescued and 25 deaths have been confirmed so far, but no identities have been made public.
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6:50 a.m.
Authorities say dive teams and other search crews have continued to search through the night for people still missing following a dive boat fire off Southern California’s coast that killed dozens sleeping below deck.
Santa Barbara City Fire Department spokeswoman Amber Anderson says Tuesday that fog and low clouds are not expected to limit the search crews in their efforts.
She says several families have visited an assistance center set up for relatives of people who were aboard the boat.
Thirty three passengers and six crew members were aboard the dive-boat Conception when it was engulfed by flames before dawn Monday.
Five crew members sleeping on the boat’s top deck jumped off and took a dinghy to safety.
As of Monday night, authorities had confirmed the deaths of 25 people.
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12 a.m.
Authorities are searching for the nine people who remain missing after a boat fire off the coast of southern California killed dozens who were left sleeping below decks with only one narrow stairway out.
Coast Guard Lt. Cmdr. Matthew Kroll said Monday that 25 people had died, and the search would continue through the night for nine still unaccounted for.
Authorities opened a family assistance center where counseling was being provided to relatives of those onboard the dive-boat Conception when it sank Monday. None of their names were immediately released.
The missing and dead were among 39 passengers and crew who had departed Santa Barbara’s Channel Islands Harbor on Saturday aboard the boat Conception for a Labor Day weekend scuba-diving trip.

EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler has proposed ending direct regulation of methane pollution from new and modified oil and gas facilities. Andrea Sears reports…

FREEPORT, Bahamas (AP) — The Georgia Department of Transportation is reporting light traffic on the interstate highway being used as a one-way evacuation route for coastal residents fleeing Hurricane Dorian. State officials Tuesday morning turned all lanes of Interstate 16 into an eastbound route from Savannah on the coast to Dublin about 100 miles inland. The state DOT said in a news release the route was seeing “light traffic” Tuesday afternoon and cars were “running at the speed limit.”

Sen. Bernie Sanders received an adoring welcome at the Islamic Society of North America annual convention in Houston over the weekend, as he stressed the need to forge progressive coalitions and build solidarity between communities in order to defeat President Donald Trump in the election. Sanders, along with former U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro, became the first presidential candidates to ever address the nation’s largest gathering of Muslims.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Joe Biden entered the Democratic primary promising to reject donations from lobbyists, yet a review of campaign finance data by The Associated Press finds he’s accepted roughly $200,000 from employees of major lobbying firms. Biden pledged from the outset to forgo money specifically from federally registered lobbyists. That leaves him free to take donations from state-level lobbyists and those who lobby but do not meet the legal threshold requiring them to register.

After three years of fundraising to reopen the Beaver Falls wave pool, Tyrone Zeigler says he is nearly at his goal. The 41-year-old claims he’s within 80-grand of his half-million-dollar goal while some local businesses pledged labor or materials for the pool’s repairs. The pool closed in 2002 because Beaver Falls officials said the cost of maintaining it was too much.

Several groups of volunteers from Pittsburgh and the surrounding areas are in place to assist in the recovery from Hurricane Dorian. Teams with Pittsburgh Aviation Animal Rescue headed to South Carolina to help clear out shelters for animals before the storm. Also, several specialized ambulance units from Fayette and Washington counties are southbound to help after the storm.

PENN HILLS, Pa. (AP) — Authorities say a head-on collision near Pittsburgh claimed the lives of two people and injured a third. Allegheny County emergency dispatchers say the crash was reported just after 5 p.m. Sunday in Penn Hills. Chief Howard Burton of the Penn Hills police department says one vehicle was apparently trying to pass a third car in a no-passing area. Burton says two people in one car were killed and a third person in the other car had injuries not deemed life-threatening.