The crazed man who allegedly shot and killed a county constable and another person near Texas A&M University on Monday was a "ticking time bomb" that was ready to blow, his family said.
"He was crazy as hell," Richard Weaver, gunman Thomas Caffall's stepfather, told Houston station KPRC television. "At one point, we were afraid that he was going to come up here and do something to his mother and me."
"We were hoping he'd kill himself before doing something like this," said Weaver, "We are just devastated for the families this SOB killed."
Weaver could not elaborate on exactly what pushed Caffall to this point, but did say he was aware of the eviction. Weaver said Caffall had not spoken to his mother in several months.
Weaver said Caffall quit his job about nine months ago and proclaimed he would never work for anybody again.
Shawn Kemp, a local acquaintance of Caffall's, told The Eagle newspaper that he "fits the profile of a dude who might snap."
Caffall had seemed depressed and often rambled about guns and war, Kemp told the newspaper.
"I don't know the guy well, but I've been around him enough to know, well, that I'm not surprised at all," Kemp said, adding that he had heard that Caffall planned to pawn some of his guns to pay his rent.
Caffall, 35, died after being shot by SWAT officers during a 30-minute firefight in College Station, Texas, at around 12:45 p.m.
A police officer and a 51-year-old woman were also shot during the incident, while two other officers were hit by shrapnel.
At a press conference on Monday, College Station police would not say whether the victims of the crossfire were hit by cops or the gunman.
The shootout started shortly after noon when Caffall shot and killed Brian Bachmann, 41, a Brazos County constable and married father of two, while Bachmann was trying to serve him with a notice to evict his one-story, two-bedroom rental home, police said.
Police responded to the scene and found Bachmann lying wounded in the front yard, and Caffall opened fire on them from inside his house, police said.
Witnesses described hearing a barrage of at least 30 gun shots from a semiautomatic weapon, as cops dove for cover behind their vehicles and yelled at neighbors to stay inside their homes.
Rigo Cisneros, a neighbor and former Army medic, recorded some of the gunfight while taking cover beneath some bushes his yard, The Eagle reported.
After the shooting stopped, Cisneros told police he was a medic and was given the go-ahead to try to help the mortally wounded officer.
"I performed CPR. There were no vital signs on the constable when I got there," Cisneros told The Eagle. "He took one clear gunshot wound to the chest."
On Caffall's Facebook page there were several photos of rifles, but no direct mention that something like Monday's event was brewing in his life.