Attorney general seeks to speed up process in aftermath of rampage that left seven people dead

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

In the wake of a west Texas shooting rampage that killed seven people at the weekend, it has been revealed that the US attorney general, William Barr, has been drafting legislation to speed up the process leading to the death penalty in federal cases for people who commit such mass murder, officials said on Monday.

Marc Short, the chief of staff to vice-president, Mike Pence, told journalists traveling on Air Force 2 en route for an official visit to Poland that the proposal would be among new gun legislation the Trump administration intends to pitch to the US Congress, which reconvenes next week. Short said Pence had communicated with Barr about the issue.

Pence is visiting Poland without the president after Donald Trump postponed his visit because Hurricane Dorian began bearing down towards the US mainland.

The White House has, by the president’s own account, been working on ways to address gun violence after the recent mass shootings. Trump addressed the subject on Saturday after a gunman went on a high-speed drive in Midland and Odessa, Texas, spraying bullets from an assault rifle as he drove, before being killed by police.

The incident began soon after 3pm on Saturday when a man, later identified as the gunman, was stopped by state troopers for failing to signal a turn. He opened fire with an AR-15-style rifle then fled, hijacking a mail truck and shooting people at random.

The president did not set out any specifics when he reacted to the killings on Saturday. There has been no meaningful legislation on the issue in recent times and Trump has a record of bringing up gun control measures and then retreating quickly.

FBI special agent Christopher Combs said the gunman involved in the west Texas rampage “was on a long spiral down” before he was fired from his job on the day of the shooting.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Messages written in sidewalk chalk are seen at the University of Texas of the Permian Basin. Photograph: Callaghan O’Hare/Reuters

Combs said the home of the gunman, identified at the weekend as 36-year-old Seth Aaron Ator, was “a strange residence” and that the conditions “reflect what his mental state was, going into this”.

Authorities say Ator was dismissed from his job at Journey Oilfield Services on Saturday morning and then made “rambling” phone calls to the emergency services and the FBI. Combs says Ator had gone to work that day “in trouble.”

Representative Tom Craddick, a state legislator, told the Midland-Reporter Telegram that the shooter had failed a background check at his job. A neighbor claimed that the gunman approached her house last month, while carrying a large rifle, and shouted at her for putting garbage in a Dumpster nearby, according to CNN.

Advocates for greater gun control, inside and outside Washington, have been frustrated and angered by lack of action from Congress and the White House in the past decade, and lately by the president’s focus on many topics in relation to trying to reduce mass shootings – except greater gun control.

Trump has recently appeared to blame mental health issues, a general “glorification of violence” and violent video games for repeated mass shootings, after the mass shooting in El Paso, Texas, earlier in August.

But some opponents, especially Democrats in Congress and candidates for the 2020 presidential election, say these issues are just as relevant or prevalent in other countries but only the US has such a high frequency of mass shootings and widespread availability of guns, including legal, high-powered assault rifles.

Trump has also explored expanded background checks, but he has wavered on the issue. Top Senate Democrats have urged Republicans to consider gun legislation that was already passed at the house.

Saturday’s rampage was the third major mass shooting in August, following incidents in El Paso, Texas and Dayton, Ohio.

Communities in Texas are raising money for wounded survivors and bereaved families. Twenty-two injured people are recovering and the youngest victim, a 17-month-old, was scheduled to undergo surgery after she was shot in the face.

Hundreds of community members gathered on Sunday night at the University of Texas Permian Basin, in Odessa, for a prayer vigil honoring the victims of the massacre.

Pastors, speaking in Spanish and English, implored attendees to pray for victims and thanked law enforcement officers and medical workers who responded to the shooting.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Teams from the Federal Bureau of Investigation search a home in a rural residential area in west Odessa. Photograph: Joel Angel Juarez/ZUMA Wire/REX/Shutterstock

“In west Texas you have to be tough,” Odessa’s mayor David Turner reportedly said. “Yesterday was a horrible day that shook us to our very foundation but it will not break us.”

T-shirts with the slogan “Permian Basin Strong” were distributed along with free flowers and handmade cards, according to NBC’s Dallas-Forth Worth affiliate.