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Texas Gov. Gregg Abbott posted a message on Twitter on Monday saying Ator not only had a criminal record, but he had also once failed a background check when he tried to purchase a gun.

\"He didn’t go thru a background check for the gun he used in Odessa,\" Abbott tweeted. \"We must keep guns out of criminals’ hands.\"

According to online records in the Texas Department of Public Safety database, Ator did have a minor criminal history, as first reported Monday by the Austin American-Statesman newspaper.

The online records show that Ator was arrested on Aug. 1, 2001, for evading arrest and criminal trespass in McLennan County, Texas, when he was 18.

Ator pleaded guilty to the two misdemeanor charges and was sentenced to 24 months of court probation, according to the records.

Gerke said Odessa police also had several contacts with Ator for minor offenses, but added that wouldn't have prevented him from obtaining a license for a gun.

\"PHOTO:
Rick Lobo via Reuters
PHOTO: People are evacuated from Cinergy Odessa cinema following a shooting in Odessa, Texas, in this still image taken from video posted to social media, Aug. 31, 2019.
>

John Wester, a special agent for the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, confirmed on Monday that Ator did fail a firearms background check.

\"The background check was run through the National Instant Criminal Background Check System. The NIC system did work. He applied to get a gun. He was denied a gun,\" said Wester, who declined to say why Ator was rejected.

He said the investigation into how Ator got the weapon he allegedly used in the massacre remains under investigation.

Gerke also said that overnight, police learned about another victim wounded in the rampage, bringing the number of people injured to 23.

\"It was a 70-year-old female who had been struck by shrapnel while in her car,\" Gerke said. \"She took herself to the hospital and she was treated and released. So that's good news.\"

The mass shooting came exactly four weeks after 22 people were gunned down at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, and another nine people killed the next day by another gunman in Dayton, Ohio.

The Odessa-Midland rampage was the fifth high-profile mass shooting in Texas since September 2017 that have left a combined 72 people dead and 79 wounded.

The shooting also came a day before eight new laws that ease restrictions on guns went into the effect in Texas, including prohibiting landlords from banning tenants from having guns in their apartments and allowing people licensed to carry concealed weapons to have firearms in churches and other places of worship.

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