A gunman who killed a law enforcement officer and a bystander near Texas A&M University on Monday before he was shot and killed by police had suffered from mental health issues, his mother said on Tuesday.
"He had been ill. It breaks our hearts his illness led to this," Linda Weaver said in a brief statement about her son, 35-year-old Thomas Alton Caffall III, whom she called Tres.
The statement, released by her attorney, did not say what kind of illness Caffall had, but Weaver told CNN her son had struggled with mental health issues for years and the family became worried about him after he quit his job in January.
Caffall opened fire from inside his rental home on Monday as Const. Brian Bachmann tried to serve an eviction notice, setting off a half-hour gunbattle that ended when police shot and killed him, police said. Bachmann, 41, also died, as did a 51-year-old bystander, Chris Northcliffe.
Four other people were wounded in the shootout, which came as the U.S. was already on edge over gun violence following two recent mass shootings in Colorado and Wisconsin.
The wounded include three police officers and a mother who was helping her college student daughter move before the start of classes, police said. The mother, Barbara Holdsworth, 51, of Houston, was in a hospital in serious condition on Tuesday.
