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Houston police identify shooting spree gunman as Army veteran

By Ed Adamczyk
Bullet holes can be seen in a Houston Police car that arrived at a weekend shooting. A police source identified the assailant as Dionisio Garza III, a military veteran, who was killed by police. Photo courtesy of Houston Police Department/Facebook
Bullet holes can be seen in a Houston Police car that arrived at a weekend shooting. A police source identified the assailant as Dionisio Garza III, a military veteran, who was killed by police. Photo courtesy of Houston Police Department/Facebook

HOUSTON, May 31 (UPI) -- Houston police identified the man responsible for a fatal weekend shootout in Houston as Dionisio Garza III, an Army veteran who served in Afghanistan.

A source in the Houston Police Department said the military records of Garza, 25, born in San Bernardino County, Calif., were found at the scene of the incident, a car wash and parts store, KTRK-TV, Houston, reported Monday.

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It added its reporters found a military bag at the site of the shooting Monday. The bag was given to police. Garza's birth certificate, military discharge papers indicating he was a sergeant in the Army, and awards including the Afghanistan Campaign Medial were found in the bag.

Houston police have not yet formally named the shooter as Garza.

A witness to the shooting, car wash owner Paris Nichols, told the Houston Chronicle he saw a bare-chested man fatally shoot a customer, Eugene Linscomb, 56, as he sat in his car, the shooter announcing, "That man's the devil." When Nichols' wife, Felicia Nichols, dropped to her knees to pray, the shooter allegedly said, "Y'all calm down. I'm not going to kill y'all, y'all are Christians."

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The shooter then walked to his car to obtain an AR-15 assault rifle while complaining about homosexuals, Jews and Walmart and shouting about the end of the world, Paris Nichols said.

Police said random shooting then began, and before the assailant was fatally shot by a SWAT team member, three bystanders and two police officers were injured. Police cars were also struck by gunfire as well as a police helicopter hovering overhead and a gas pump at a nearby filling station, prompting a fire.

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