By STEVE THOMPSON / The Dallas Morning News
stevethompson@dallasnews.com
Shooting suspect Thai-An Huu Nguyen turned his head and spit on the pavement Thursday morning as a police officer escorted him into the Dallas County Jail. He glared at the TV cameramen around him and uttered an expletive.
"Why were you shooting?" someone asked.
"They [messed] with me, that's why," replied Mr. Nguyen, using another expletive.
Thai-An Huu Nguyen
It's unclear what "they" – the two strangers he is accused of shooting this week and the two children who narrowly escaped injury – might have done to bother him. But police say Mr. Nguyen has confessed to five seemingly random shootings at motorists during a three-day rampage in Garland, Mesquite, Richardson and Plano.
"He confessed to us last night," Garland police spokesman Joe Harn said Thursday. "We felt sure, with the evidence that we had, that we had our guy, but it's always nice when they finally say, 'Yes, we did it.' "
Mr. Nguyen, 22, was arrested Tuesday after reports of a sixth and final shooting targeting a Garland restaurant.
He faces two counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and one count of deadly conduct in Garland. Richardson police said they have filed one count of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. Bail for all his charges totaled $275,000.
Even if he does post bond, authorities say, he will remain in custody on an Immigration and Customs Enforcement hold. Mr. Nguyen is legally in the U.S. but is not a citizen, ICE spokesman Carl Rusnok said.
Locations of six shootings in North Texas over three days Mr. Nguyen emigrated from Vietnam in 2000 with his parents and four siblings. His family says he studies nursing, but he's also a felon with violence in his past.
His criminal history includes convictions on two charges from 2006: a misdemeanor assault case in which a woman was robbed at gunpoint and a felony charge of failing to render aid in a crash that left a teenage boy with severe head trauma. He received six years' probation in all. He also has a charge from 2002 of carrying a weapon in a prohibited place.
Police say this week's shooting spree began in Garland on Sunday, when a gunman targeted motorists waiting at two different red lights. A third attack occurred later that day in Mesquite. Another motorist was targeted in Richardson on Monday afternoon, and a fifth Tuesday on the Bush Turnpike in Plano.
In most cases, the shooter missed, but one man was shot in the hand and another in the torso.
Staff writer Rachel Slade contributed to the report.
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