Medical examiner says Texas gunman killed himself after attacking suburban police station

Medical examiner says Texas gunman killed himself

McKINNEY, Texas — A 29-year-old man killed himself during a shootout with authorities after he drove a trailer filled with explosives into the parking lot of a suburban Dallas police station and started firing at the building, officials said Wednesday.

The Collin County Medical Examiner’s Office said Patrick Gray Sharp died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.

Sharp’s shootout with authorities Tuesday morning came after he towed a trailer filled with explosives into the parking lot of the McKinney police station and set his pickup truck on fire, police said. Sharp retreated to a field across a road and fired more than 100 rounds at police headquarters, McKinney police Chief Bob Kowalski said.

Nobody else was injured in the attack in the suburb of roughly 127,000 people about 30 miles north of Dallas, and Kowalski says police don’t have a motive. A McKinney police spokesman didn’t immediately return a call Wednesday.

Sharp worked as a security guard for building wire manufacturer Encore Wire Corp. in McKinney, said Cheryl Cox, the mother of a man Sharp shared a home with in Anna, about 15 miles north of McKinney. Cox said she thought of Sharp as a son and was “shocked” by the attack. Cox said she had no idea why Sharp would target police.

Cox and her husband, Bobby Cox, live in a home just behind the house Sharp shared with Eric McClellan. Bobby Cox said Sharp showed no sign of trouble Saturday, the last time they saw him.

A spokesman for Encore Wire told The Dallas Morning News that Sharp resigned a few days ago. An Encore official wasn’t immediately available to comment to The Associated Press on Wednesday.

McClellan told the AP he was on vacation outside Texas when he received calls from state troopers and Bobby Cox, his stepfather, telling him what happened. He said Sharp was “fine and dandy” when McClellan left Texas earlier this week.