Texas assistant district attorney shot and killed near courthouse
Texas Assistant District Attorney Mark Hasse was shot and killed Thursday near a Kaufman County courthouse.
According to NBC, Hasse was the intended target of the shooting. The 57-year-old was shot multiple times while walking from the courthouse parking lot to the courthouse itself at about 8 a.m. local time.
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"When you hear a DA at 8:40 in the morning is gunned down by two people, I think there's a reasonable presumption that it's not random," said lawyer James Lee Bright, who was at the courthouse when the shooting occurred.
Nearby streets were closed and schools were put on lockdown in the small northern Texas town of 6,700, reported USA Today.
The county's sheriff, David Byrnes, called the shooting an attack on the criminal justice system, as Hasse had been in charge of many drug and murder cases.
"This is the next level [of crime]," he told USA Today.
According to the Dallas News, a $20,000 reward was offered for information leading to the capture of the shooters, but Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins has said that an arrest has already been made.
Witnesses allegedly saw two shooters wearing black, with one possibly wearing a tactical vest, but police have yet to confirm these details, noted NBC. They also said the shooters were driving an older, silver Ford Taurus.
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