(CNN) — A Texas constable and two others were killed Monday in a shooting near Texas A&M University, police said.
Rhonda Seaton, a spokeswoman with the College Station police department, told CNN that the three people killed were the constable, the man authorities say exchanged gunfire with law enforcement officers and an unidentified civilian.
A few minutes earlier, Asst. Chief Scott McCollum, from the same police department, told reporters that multiple people had been shot in the incident, which occurred around noon just a few blocks from the Texas A&M campus.
The dead included Brian Bachman, a constable in Brazos County, according to McCollum. According to his Facebook campaign page, Bachmann was a 41-year-old Republican from College Station who had been a Brazos County sheriff’s deputy since 1993.
A male civilian was also killed, the assistant police chief said. A post on the city of College Station’s official Twitter page identified this third victim as a “civilian bystander.”
Three others were injured in the shooting. They included two law enforcement officers, including one who was shot in the leg, and a female civilian who was undergoing surgery at a hospital, according to McCollum.
Texas A&M issued a Code Maroon — warning students and others on campus to find safety — at 12:29 p.m., after a report of an “active shooter.”
An update at 12:44 p.m., also posted on the university’s website, indicated that the suspected shooter was by then “in custody.”
When law enforcement officers arrived at the scene, they found the constable down in the front yard of a home, according to McCollum. The new officers engaged the suspected gunman, eventually shooting him and taking him into custody, police said.
Officer Jason James, with the Bryan police department, said “there is a possibility that it was an eviction.” He pointed out that 911 calls began coming in after officers had arrived on the scene, rather than officers responding to a shooting that neighbors told them about.
“It’s not like a disturbance where they were actually dispatched to it,” James said. “They weren’t responding to a shooting, but it turned into one.”
Officer Jon Agnew with the Bryan Police Department — a community that’s adjacent to College Station — noted the shooting occurred in a “residential area.” He said earlier Monday afternoon that, while authorities had not yet ruled out additional suspects and continued to canvass the scene, they believed the area was safe.
“The area is secure,” Agnew said. “We feel the community is safe for right now.”
