I know it may not seem like a big deal to some, but a man with a gun holding up a gas station in my town is something that never ever happens. I live in the good old Hill Country of Texas. Fredericksburg to be exact. We have a little over 10,000 people living here and live off the money we make from tourists. Our Main Street is constantly packed with people from all over. They think our town is perfect and quaint. But last night S*** got real.
A man named Victor Valdez went into our local Valero. He pulled his gun and told everyone to get out. Of course the cops came and had the place surrounded. After a few hours the man began shooting at the police. The police shot back. The man was injured and taken to the hospital.
I have a few friends that know him personally and they say he had been a Marine and was a little messed up from seeing things. What do y'all think? Do you think the war can affect someone in such a way that they would do this? What do you think his motive was? No one said anything about him trying to rob the place. Anyways you can read it Here
And just remember if any of you come to Fredericksburg Texas, come visit me at Kelani Yogurt.

Texas has more than double the total population of my country. We have very, very restrictive gun laws. I do not find this to be a huge deal. Especially since the article says he wasn't even injured.

I do find it strange that you're trying to spin this into an advert for your village. But hey, I guess this isn't such a big deal to you either. ;]

I'm not spinning anything into anything. I just wanted to share with everyone what happened in my small town and how it's a big deal to me. And its a HUGE deal to my town. FBI is all over the place now saying that our cops are dirty because they fired over 100 bullets at the poor man. But no I'm just trying to advertise my town right? It's funny how this kind of stuff happens every single day all over the world but people only seem to care when there's lots of casualties.

It might not seem like huge thing in comparison to a lot other things going on in the world, but for a small town, it is a pretty big. I live near a small town that is less than half the size of 's, and this would be a pretty freaking big thing there - a lot of people would be scared, since "out of sight, out of mind" and you normally hear about robberies, guns, and murders in larger cities and towns. But when it actually happens there, particularly if it is a quiet area, a lot of people get scared since it puts it all in prospective.

Anyways, I... I'm not surprised if war did mess him up. Hell, I know when my brother was still in bootcamp, a kid from another regime ended up committing suicide - they where doing sweeps of the place to find bullet shells, the kid found a live bullet, loaded up his gun and killed himself. I never really heard anything else about that kid, but from the sounds of it, it sounded like he had a bad homelife and whatever he went through in bootcamp threw him over the edge. And in that case, it was just training.

That said, the government has gotten a lot better with treating soldiers when they come back and before they're fully integrated with society again, but I suppose it would be expected for some people to "fall through the cracks." It's really sad, and hopefully measures will continue to be put into place to it happens less and less, but if trauma was the reason this guy went and tried to hold up the gas station, hopefully his condition in the hospital will get better and he'll get the therapy he appears to need. Its good that it seems no one else was hurt, though -- however, I really, really hope that "100 bullets" was a gross overestimation by the FBI. I mean, that sounds extremely overkill (particularly for one person), and I imagine that would just increase the risk for bystanders to get hurt. :(

As for a motive, well, it's hard saying. However, I suppose I wouldn't be too surprised if it was a very bad, ill-thought of plead for help/attention, considering told everyone to get out and he didn't rob the place. Of course, robbing it might have been his intention, and he froze up after he got everyone out. -shrugs- Of course, its probably best to just see what the investigation pulls up.