Midland gunman kills city employee, injures 10 before being found dead

A city employee was killed and 10 other people were wounded after a gunman opened fire in Midland, then barricaded himself in an abandoned veterinary building and died after an hourslong standoff. Authorities said the violence began after a separate confrontation with police two days earlier, when the suspect allegedly fired multiple shots at a Midland officer during a vehicle chase and was wanted ever since for attempted capital murder.

Police identified the gunman as 45-year-old Victor Mata Villarreal of Odessa. Officials said he was encountered again around 8 a.m. on the 4600 block of West Wall Street, where Midland police, Texas Department of Public Safety personnel and other federal partners responded to an active-shooter call. Investigators said Villarreal allegedly fired at officers and bystanders before retreating into the abandoned veterinary clinic, turning the scene into a tense standoff that ended only when he was found dead inside the building around 12:30 p.m.

All of the people struck in the Friday attack were civilians. Midland city officials identified the person killed as Ed Scott, a city employee. Hospital officials said nine of the wounded were taken to Midland Memorial Hospital, where four were rushed into surgery and five were initially stable. Those five later were discharged. Another injured person was taken to an Odessa hospital. Officials said no law enforcement officers were injured in the Friday shooting.

The case now rests with the Texas Rangers, with the FBI and state agencies also involved in the investigation. The sequence raised immediate questions about how quickly the threat escalated from a Wednesday traffic stop to a gunman holed up in a building on West Wall Street, and about the danger officers and civilians face when an armed suspect refuses to surrender. Midland Mayor Lori Blong said the city’s active shooter situation had ended and asked residents to pray for the victims, their families and the law enforcement officers involved.

The shooting also reopened wounds in the Midland-Odessa area, where memories remain raw from the August 31, 2019 rampage that left seven people dead and 25 injured before the gunman was killed by law enforcement.