Authorities identify Midland shooting suspect and link him to earlier police attack
Midland police identified the suspected gunman in Friday’s West Wall Street shooting as 45-year-old Victor Mata Villarreal of Odessa, according to the Midland Reporter-Telegram and the Associated Press. The new official account connects Friday’s attack to an earlier police case: MRT reports, citing Midland police, that Villarreal had been sought after a June 10 traffic stop in which a driver allegedly fired a rifle at a Midland officer before fleeing. AP reports that the Texas Department of Public Safety said Villarreal was already wanted when Friday’s shooting began, and that he fired at officers and bystanders before barricading inside an abandoned veterinary clinic. Authorities have reported one death besides Villarreal and nine injured people. The Texas Rangers are now investigating at Midland police’s request, according to MRT, leaving key questions unresolved, including how Villarreal died and why the Friday shooting started.
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Live updates
Last updated 14 h ago10 updatesCity identifies Midland employee killed in West Wall Street shooting
MRT reports that City of Midland officials identified the civilian killed in Friday’s shooting as Ed Scott, a city employee. According to MRT, the city said Scott was one of two people who died, with the suspected gunman counted as the other death, and nine people were injured. AP also reports, citing a city spokesperson, that Scott worked for Midland and was involved with local and regional softball organizations. MRT reports that city officials said Scott’s family asked for privacy, and Mayor Lori Blong separately invited residents to a Friday evening gathering at Centennial Park after the-շ
Hospital says five shooting patients have been released
MRT reports that, by late Friday, five of the nine people injured in the Midland shooting had left hospital care, while three others were recovering after surgery and one person was still in surgery. AP separately reports, citing Midland Memorial Hospital, that five patients had been treated and released and four people brought there underwent surgery. The updates add a clearer picture of the medical response after earlier reports confirmed nine injuries, the hospital lockdown and Saturday’s planned blood drive. Neither MRT nor AP reported that any law enforcement officer was among the injured
West Wall Street closure is expected to last through the weekend
MRT reports that drivers are being told to avoid the West Wall Street/Business 20 corridor as the investigation continues after Friday’s shooting. According to MRT, the affected stretch runs from the Fasken Road area near Cavender Subaru to Loop 250 in Midland and was expected to stay closed through the weekend. MRT reports that Midland Police Chief Greg Snow asked the public for continued patience while authorities remain at the scene. The update adds a more specific timeline for a closure that officials had previously described only as continuing while the active investigation proceeded.
Hospital plans blood drive after Midland shooting response
MRT reports that Midland Memorial Hospital went into lockdown for several hours during Friday’s shooting response and set up a family reunification site for relatives seeking information. According to MRT, the hospital also scheduled a June 13 blood drive to help restore blood supplies after treating shooting patients. The hospital details add a public-service element to the earlier casualty and discharge updates, but MRT’s current article does not give fuller information in the monitored page about the drive’s exact hours or collection site.
Texas Rangers ask public for video and images from Midland scene
MRT reports that the Texas Department of Public Safety and the Texas Rangers are asking the public to submit visual material from Friday’s Midland shooting as the investigation continues. According to MRT, investigators are seeking security video, cellphone footage, dashcam recordings, surveillance images and photographs tied to the incident. MRT reports that authorities are especially focused on West Wall Street/Business 20, Industrial Avenue and nearby areas, and that material can be uploaded through a DPS evidence portal. According to MRT, DPS says the Texas Rangers remain the lead agency.
Texas Rangers take lead role as West Wall Street closures continue
MRT reports, citing officials at the scene, that the Texas Rangers are investigating Friday’s shooting at Midland police’s request while the case remains active. According to MRT, officials said they were not releasing further details for now and asked anyone with information about the incident to contact investigators. MRT also reports that West Wall Street, also known as Business 20, was expected to stay closed from the Fasken Road area near Cavender Subaru to Loop 250 through the weekend as authorities continued work at the scene. That closure detail has not yet appeared in the other latest
Midland chief says armored vehicle helped extract pinned-down officers
AP reports that Midland Police Chief Greg Snow gave a fuller account of the police response, saying several officers were trapped behind patrol vehicles after the gunman opened fire when police arrived. According to AP, Snow said an armored vehicle was used to get those officers out, and AP reports that no officers were shot. MRT also reports, citing Snow at the scene, that officers then worked along Highway 80 to remove people who might still have been exposed and to reduce the number of possible targets before authorities secured a perimeter around the abandoned clinic.
Midland city identifies civilian killed in Friday shooting
AP reports that a Midland city spokesperson identified the civilian killed in Friday’s shooting as Ed Scott. According to AP, the city said Scott was a husband and father who worked in Midland’s solid waste department and was active in local and regional softball organizations. AP also reports that police have not released detailed information about why the gunman opened fire, how the victims were shot, or the conditions of the people still hospitalized. The identification comes from a city spokesperson as relayed by AP, but no separate local confirmation was found in the monitored sources.
Hospital says five Midland shooting patients have been released
AP reports that Midland Memorial Hospital said five people brought there after Friday’s shooting had been treated and released, while four people underwent surgery. MRT gives a more detailed late-Friday snapshot, reporting that five injured people had been discharged, three were recovering after surgery and one remained in surgery. Those hospital figures describe patients handled by Midland Memorial and do not replace the Texas Department of Public Safety’s broader count of one civilian killed and 10 other people injured. Authorities cited by AP and MRT have not released victim identities or a
Texas DPS says 10 people were injured in Midland attack
The Texas Department of Public Safety says one civilian was killed and 10 other people were injured in Friday’s West Wall Street shooting, and DPS says no law enforcement officers were injured. That official count differs from MRT, Al Jazeera and The Guardian references to nine injured or hospitalized people, though AP is also using the 10-injured figure. According to DPS, the suspect fired at officers and bystanders after police arrived around 8 a.m., barricaded himself in an abandoned veterinary clinic, and was found dead around 12:30 p.m. DPS says West Wall Street/Business 20 is expected to
About this story
Victor Mata Villarreal (45-year-old Odessa, Texas, resident officially identified by authorities as the suspected Midland gunman) is central to the new development because police now link him to a June 10 officer-shooting case. Midland (West Texas city in the Permian Basin oil region, about 500 km west of Dallas-Fort Worth) was the scene of Friday’s shooting near West Wall Street. Odessa (nearby West Texas city) is where authorities said Villarreal lived. The Midland Police Department (city law-enforcement agency led by Chief Greg Snow) handled the initial response. The Texas Department of Public Safety, or DPS (statewide law-enforcement agency), provided the suspect and casualty account cited by AP. The Texas Rangers (DPS investigative division with a role in major incidents and officer-involved shootings) are leading the investigation at Midland police’s request, according to MRT.
How to read this story
The history
The Midland-Odessa area has recent experience with mass violence. The Guardian notes that the region was near the route of a 2019 shooting rampage in which a gunman killed seven people and wounded many others across Odessa and Midland. The Violence Prevention Project, a Hamline University research centre, tracks US mass shootings from 1966 to 2025 and says its database contains 202 cases, with 1,446 deaths and 2,246 non-fatal injuries across those incidents. Its research also stresses that many attacks involve overlapping motives and observable warning signs, a context relevant to but not determinative of the Midland investigation.
International angle
For readers outside the United States, the Midland case is another example of how US local shootings can rapidly become multi-agency incidents involving city police, state investigators, hospitals and federal support. The identification also highlights a recurring public-safety question with international resonance: how authorities manage the risk posed by a suspect already wanted in a violent police-related case.
How this story developed
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