Race may have been a factor in the separate shootings of two black men this month, authorities say. Police documents state the felon accused in the shootings — one of them fatal — approached his victims because they looked “suspicious.”

Police say 40-year-old Anthony Huynh of Lewisville used strobe lights to pull over Lamont White, 54, who he then shot and killed in Flower Mound on New Year’s Day. Huynh is also accused of shooting Andre Williams, 42, who was sleeping in a car in a Lewisville hotel parking lot on Saturday. His injuries were not life-threatening.

Huynh faces charges of murder, aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and unlawful possession of a firearm by a felon. He is being held in the Denton County Jail on $1.5 million bond.

Police said Huynh has confessed to both crimes.

Huynh, who is Asian, told police that he’s had difficulty “with black people being confrontational with him and following him around,” according to police documents. But in these two incidents, police said, it was Huynh who approached his victims.

In Saturday’s shooting, Lewisville police said Huynh was in his third-floor room at the Suburban Extended Stay Hotel when he saw Williams sleeping in a car in the parking lot. Police said Huynh thought Williams was acting suspiciously, so he grabbed a flashlight and his handgun and went to the parking lot. As Williams drove by, police said, Huynh felt fear and shot at the car. He then returned to his room to watch television, he told police.

Williams had been struck in the left hip. He told police he didn’t know the suspect or why he had started shooting at him.

Huynh had been renting a room at the hotel for about four months. Hotel staff watched security footage and identified Huynh as a guest, police said.

In his room, police found bullets that matched those used in the Flower Mound slaying. Police also found receipts from a Target in Lewisville, where White worked. Huynh’s white Nissan also matched the description of the suspect’s vehicle in the Flower Mound case.

Around 10 p.m. on New Year’s Day, White left Target, where he worked in addition to a job at a Xerox call center. Police said Huynh saw White sitting in his car in the parking lot, which Huynh thought was suspicious and an indication that White was about to commit a crime.

When White left Target, Huynh followed him in his car. Police said Huynh used his flashlight’s strobe feature. White then pulled into a closed shopping center in the 500 block of Flower Mound Road.

Huynh pulled up next to White, who opened his door and was about to step out of his car, Huynh told police. Huynh couldn’t see White’s right hand, so he immediately shot him multiple times, he told police. Authorities found White sitting in his car with blood dripping from his forehead. White was airlifted to Methodist Dallas Medical Center, where he died from his injuries.

“How can something like this happen to a man so great?” said D’Lontay Leeks of Little Elm, who worked with White at both Xerox and Target.

Friends remembered White as someone who could befriend anyone he met, regardless of race, age or socioeconomic status. He leaves behind a wife and three stepchildren.

“He was the type that he could go up to anyone and talk to them and just right away, you would fall in love with him,” Leeks said. “We lost a great man that didn’t deserve to go out the way that he did,” he said.

Huynh was previously convicted in a Houston court of aggravated assault against a family member, a felony. In October, he was sentenced to two years in prison. It was unclear whether he served that sentence or how he came to live in the Lewisville hotel.

Asked whether police are investigating White’s slaying as a hate crime, Flower Mound police Capt. Kurt Labhart said Tuesday that investigators did not want to pinpoint just one motivation for the crime at this point.

“We are continuing on with the investigation wherever that leads us,” Labhart said.