So This Is Christmas

On this Christmas morning, family and friends of three of the people who were involved in Monday's rush-hour shootings in Dallas are grieving their losses.

As you may have heard, the alleged perpetrator died last night of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to his head. Two people were killed in the shootings. A third was injured.

I find myself wondering if all this could have been avoided.

It's the same sort of helpless feeling I've had when I've heard the news about shooting rampages at schools or shopping malls or restaurants or office buildings. Inevitably, it seems, someone steps forward and mentions red flags that should have been heeded in the past.

You know, something like this — "He was never the same after he came back from [Vietnam/the Persian Gulf/a similarly traumatic event elsewhere]."

Which, inevitably, makes me think, "That would have been a good time to tell somebody, wouldn't it?"

I'm not talking about the people who get accused of serial homicides, and then the people who have known them most of their lives say, "He was always such a good boy." Those people, the Ted Bundys of the world, always seem to live lives of divided personalities. They seem to be born that way. No single event transforms them.

I'm talking about the people who are transformed by a traumatic event. Such an event always seems to be followed by a series of warning signs that things have taken a turn toward the tragic.

Based on a story in the Dallas Morning News, the alleged shooter, a former Utah state trooper, became addicted to painkillers following an unspecified "on-duty accident."

Whatever the nature of the "accident," apparently it led to problems on the job and the man resigned in May.

He reportedly was excited by a "job opportunity" in Texas and moved his family here, but few other details have emerged, except that, on the day of the shootings, it appears that the man may have been aware that he was being sought in connection with a couple of crimes — the theft of a woman's purse on Dec. 17 and the later use of her credit cards (which apparently was photographed by a surveillance camera), and another purse snatching earlier on Monday.

This may have triggered some or all of the tragic events that unfolded along a north Dallas freeway. Details are decidedly sketchy at this point. And, while most homicides have their poignant, even ironic, aspects, this case seems to reverberate with them.

I don't know if the man had any other problems since he and his family moved here about six or seven months ago, but his problems in Utah appeared to include abuse of alcohol and prescription medicine, driving under the influence and threatening suicide. I've also heard reports that he was suspected of stealing prescription drugs from the office of his father-in-law, a dentist.

He leaves behind a widow and five children to mourn his passing — and ponder their future in a strange land.

One of the people he killed on Monday was a truck driver who was planning to park his truck at the airport and fly home to be with his wife, daughter and stepson in Kentucky. Instead of spending the holiday with him, they will be preparing for his funeral.

For whatever comfort it may bring his survivors, Dallas police and witnesses have said the man was a hero for managing to bring his rig to a safe stop before he died. As someone who has driven on that freeway during rush hour many times, I can only imagine how difficult that must have been — or how many people were spared serious injury by his selfless act.

The family of a young man from the Dallas area will be preparing for his funeral this holiday as well. Apparently, he loved to work on his '93 Nissan, which he happened to be driving when he was shot. He was single, but it has been said that his Christmas plans included asking his girlfriend to marry him.

Perhaps, instead, she is participating in his funeral.

These were human tragedies — even the loss of the alleged shooter who appears to have undergone a radical transformation since suffering his injury. His friends and colleagues in Utah described a dedicated public servant whose life had been changed.

"This is a huge shock," a former colleague told the Dallas Morning News.

"I want people to know this is not who he is," a former neighbor told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. "Something has happened to change him because he's not that kind of a person at all."

I'd like to get all the details before reaching a conclusion, but I have to wonder if the pain and suffering that has been inflicted on the friends and relatives of these three people could have been avoided.

Were any efforts made by the state of Utah to provide counseling or therapy for a man who appears to have been injured in an on-duty accident?

Or did the state sweep his problems under the rug and give him the green light to move to another state, where an exciting "job opportunity" awaited him — knowing all the time that his problems had not been resolved?

Given his background as a state trooper, it's not unreasonable to suggest that his "job opportunity" involved work in security — where he may have been responsible for the safety of many people and the security of their possessions.

If evidence exists that anyone in a position of authority in Utah knew that the man was a ticking time bomb and nevertheless did nothing to prevent him from moving to another state, that person should be held criminally responsible for what has happened here.

And it should serve as a warning to everyone else.

Treasure every minute you have with the people you love. You never know when they will be taken from you.