On Monday morning, a man allegedly shot and killed a homeowner out in Ector County before stealing the homeowner's black Ford Mustang.
While the suspect eventually drove out of the Midland-Odessa area, some people were wondering why the citizen alarm system - which had been established back in 2019 after the mobile mass shooting happened - wasn't utilized to bring them updates and alerts about the situation.
According to Ector County Sheriff Mike Griffis, those types of alert systems are best applied during situations similar to the 2019 mobile mass shooting. Since Monday's incident didn't set as high a precedent, it was determined that the alert system didn't need to be used.
"I had not received confirmation that the other incidents, if any, are related to this incident," Sheriff Griffis said. "So we were thinking that, at this time, we don't think the system is applicable to this type of incident."
The system used currently is similar to Amber Alerts, where 911 operators can tap into the state database, but the process is complicated.
However, Ector County officials are currently working on a system that, if it was in place today, would've been used to keep the people of Odessa in the loop of what was going on.
"Absolutely," Ector County Judge Dustin Fawcett said on the potential new system being used. "We would cooperate with the school districts if it would feel necessary to secure their facility or any time you have an active shooter situation or a vehicle pursuit or major fires. Anything around those lines that citizens need to be aware of, we would absolutely use it."
Midland County kept tabs on the situation Monday as well. Since many of the events transpired in Odessa, it was determined that the situation wasn't risky enough to send an alert.
"We didn't send out one because we were monitoring it and there just wasn't a need to send out a mass notification to the public at the time," Midland County Emergency Management Coordinator Justin Bunch said. "Again, it wasn't an active shooter event, it was somewhat of a local event. Other than him getting in a car, the actual assault and murder part was localized in Odessa... he didn't stop in Midland County."
Law enforcement, along with city and county officials, determine whether or not to send out an alert through the system. Similar decisions would be made by similar officials with Ector County's system.
Midland County is also in the process of switching out their alert system from Everbridge, which has been in place since the mobile mass shooting, to IPAWS. IPAWS is controlled through the federal government and has different protocols and triggers for sending out alerts than Everbridge does.