Bigger than Dallas

A troubled former Utah highway patrolman killed two apparently unconnected people in a freeway crime spree yesterday in Dallas before turning the gun on himself. He is in critical condition and not expected to survive.

Shortly before beginning his horrific Monday morning rush hour rampage, the former trooper leaped the counter at a local Garland grocery store pharmacy and stole Oxycontin at gunpoint. The perp fled by car. Minutes later 20-year-old Jorge Lopez of Rowlett, was killed while sitting in his car at a red light in Garland. The criminal then pulled on to Interstate 635 firing at 18 wheeler trucks. The first driver survived unhurt, the second 42-year-old William Miller, the driver of a United Van Lines rig was killed by gunshot wounds. Dallas police matched the bullet to bullets recovered from a standoff which ended with the former highway patrolman shooting himself. The criminal had been dismissed from the Utah Highway Patrol after an incident during which he drove his police vehicle drunk and threatened to kill himself. How and why was this former cop able to obtain a gun? Why did he decide to perpetrate his evil deeds in Dallas? Just because that was where he had moved? New neighbors claimed to have seen no warning signs.