UTPD closes shooting investigation

AUSTIN (KXAN) - The University of Texas Police Chief Robert Dahlstrom said his department has wrapped up its investigation surrounding the shooting on campus on Sept. 28.

While Chief Dahlstrom said most of the questions have been answered, there is still one without an answer.

“There were no notes left, nothing else left to show us a reason why he took this action. So we don’t have an answer to motivation and I don’t know if we ever will,” Dahlstrom said.

What UTPD does know is that evidence from 19-year-old Colton Tooley's computer suggested the sophomore was dealing with a mental illness.

“There are [web]sites he visited to show that he had been depressed,” Dahlstrom said.

While police are still waiting for autopsy results they are fairly confident Tooley was not on any medication or seeking professional help for depression.

“He cared about people and I think, if he didn’t care about people we would have had a lot worse tragedy then what we did,” Dahlstrom said.

Following the tragedy UT police said they've reviewed their response and the police chief believes overall the entire UT community did an excellent job.

“We move forward from this. We take what happened from this event. We learn, if we’ve made some mistakes let’s correct them, let’s do better next time,” Dahlstrom said.

Dahlstrom also laid out an exact timeline of the events from that morning.

At 7:09 a.m. Tooley boarded a Capital Metro bus heading toward campus. An hour later he stepped off that bus in street clothes with the AK-47 hidden in his backpack. Police said he changed into a black suit and threw away a laptop computer before heading to the Perry Castenada Library.

Twelve minutes after arriving on campus, Tooley was dead on the sixth floor of the library.

According to UTPD, the gun he shot himself with was a gift given to him by his father a few months before. Police said Tooley’s dad gave the AK-47 to his son for recreational use.

“Hopefully we can bring closure to this and move on and move forward and hope and pray that his never happens again,” Dahlstrom said.