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The spasm of violence Monday left a College Station neighborhood shaken, a tight-knit law enforcement community in mourning and the family of 35-year-old gunman Thomas Alton Caffall distraught.

Just after noon, College Station police began fielding frantic 911 calls about gunfire in the neighborhood near the university's football stadium. Responding officers found 41-year-old Brazos County Constable Brian Bachmann shot on the lawn of the house.

For nearly 30 minutes police exchanged shots with Caffall as a neighbor, a former Army medic, waited with frustration for the all-clear so he could tend to the injured constable.

Bachmann, a police instructor, one-time Officer of the Year and a married father of two, had been mortally wounded. So was Chris Northcliff, 43, of College Station, who was outside and apparently caught up in the gunfire.

Caffall too was shot and later died at a hospital.

Police wouldn't speculate on what sparked the shooting and it wasn't immediately clear who shot whom.

"We're trying to make some sense of this," College Station Assistant Police Chief Scott McCollum said.

A neighbor and former medic, Rigo Cisneros, called 911 when he heard the shooting. In video shot on his cellphone showing police officers running into the house, Cisneros, 40, can be heard asking an officer if an ambulance is coming and if he can meanwhile tend to Bachmann's wounds. The officer tells Cisneros he must wait until the shooting scene is secure.

Cisneros told The Bryan-College Station Eagle that by the time he was allowed to approach Bachmann's body, it was too late.

"I performed CPR. There were no vital signs on the constable when I got there," he said. "He took one clear gunshot wound to the chest."

Cisneros said he also went to Caffall, who was shot several times but still conscious.

"I was asking him questions, like if he knew he was allergic to anything," Cisneros said. "He looked up at me and asked me to apologize to the officer that was shot."

Details about Caffall were slow to emerge.

Officials at Texas A&M, the 50,000-student school that dominates the city 100 miles northwest of Houston, said he was neither a student nor school employee. Police said he had been renting the home where he was staying.

Caffall's sister said Monday night that the family was shocked by the violence.

"Our hearts and prayers go out to the families and this is just a senseless tragedy," said Courtney Clark, reached Monday evening at her mother's home in Navasota, about 20 miles to the south. "We are just distraught by the havoc that he has caused."

She declined additional comment.

Besides the three fatalities, a 55-year-old woman also was wounded and was hospitalized in serious condition. Her name had not been released by Monday evening.

Another officer, Justin Oehlke, was treated for a gunshot wound in the calf and was in stable condition, police spokeswoman Rhonda Seaton said. Two other officers — Brad Smith and Phil Dorsett — were treated for "shrapnel injuries" and released, Seaton said.

Bachmann was well respected and "very close to everyone in law enforcement," McCollum said. "He was a pillar in this community, and it's sad and tragic that we've lost him today."

Bachmann had worked more than 19 years in law enforcement, according to the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement Officer Standards and Education. He had been a constable since January 2011.

Constables are law enforcement officers similar to sheriff's deputies who are elected to serve in specific county precincts. They primarily serve civil warrants and official paperwork or act as courtroom bailiffs.

Officers lined up to salute Monday afternoon as Bachmann's body was moved from a hospital and placed into a white van for transfer to a funeral home.

Texas A&M issued an emergency alert warning students and residents to stay clear of the area although most students weren't on campus because the fall semester doesn't start until later this month.

Diana Harbourt, 27, whose house is about a block away, said she had just come home for lunch when she and her boyfriend heard five loud popping sounds.

"I just thought it was somebody moving wood or stacking something," Harbourt said. "Then we heard more sirens and more officers and fire trucks came and they were keeping their distance, kind of slowly moving in. More officers showed up and told us to stay inside. ... The fear didn't hit me until after the fact, especially when I found a bullet hole in front of my house."

Texas Gov. Rick Perry, an A&M alumnus, said at an event in Florida that his "prayers are with any of those that have been injured." A&M President R. Bowen Loftin issued a statement calling Monday a "sad day in the Bryan-College Station community."

Associated Press writers Juan A. Lozano in Houston, Nomaan Merchant in Dallas and Melissa Nelson-Gabriel in Destin, Fla., contributed to this report.

 An attorney for the family of a gunman who was among three people killed in a shootout at a home near Texas A&M University says the gunman had been suffering from "mental issues."

Attorney W. Tyler Moore declined to elaborate on Tuesday what kind of mental problems 35-year-old Thomas Alton Caffall III had.

Moore said Caffall's family had lost contact with him since the spring. Moore says he had known Caffall since he was 4 years old and that "he wasn't the same kid that he used to be."

Police say Caffall opened fire Monday from inside his College Station home as he was being served an eviction notice. A law enforcement officer and a bystander were also killed in the shootout. Four people were injured.

LAPLACE, La. (AP) — Two sheriff's deputies in Louisiana were shot to death and two others were injured in an early morning shootout west of New Orleans, authorities said Thursday.

The sheriff in St. John the Baptist Parish said five people are in custody.

A tearful Sheriff Michael Tregre said the incident started when a gunman opened fire for unknown reasons on a deputy working an off-duty traffic detail along a highway that connects U.S. Highway 61 with the busy industrial corridor along the Mississippi River. That deputy was wounded.

Tregre said someone called deputies with a description of a car fleeing the scene, and officers tracked it to a nearby trailer park.

When officers found the car, they handcuffed a suspect outside a trailer, then knocked on its door. Tregre said someone with a dog answered.

"Another person exited that trailer with an assault weapon and ambushed my two officers," Tregre said. Two deputies were killed and a third was wounded.

Two suspects were wounded in the shootout before officers subdued them, Tregre said.

The dead deputies were identified as Brandon Nielsen, 34, and Jeremy Triche, 27. The wounded officers were Jason Triche, 30, and Michael Boyington, 33. They were being treated at area hospitals but the extent of their injuries was not known. The Triches are not believed to be related.

The suspects were not immediately identified.

The initial shooting occurred around 5:30 a.m. at a parking lot off Louisiana Highway 3217 used by workers in the industrial area about 20 miles west of New Orleans, near the line between St. Charles and St. John the Baptist parishes. A massive grain port also is nearby. There is heavy traffic in the area as shifts change at plants and port facilities.

Bill Day, spokesman for Valero Energy Corp., said one of the deputies was providing security for an off-site parking lot used by contractors working at the Valero St. Charles Refinery.

Day said operations at the refinery had not been affected. Valero employees were being asked to report to work as normal, unless they park at the lot where the incident took place.

Some other plants in the area were letting non-essential workers in the area leave for the day or were telling them not to report for work as the search continued.

Police officers from throughout metro New Orleans rushed to the scene after the shootings in anticipation of a possible manhunt.

Tregre said an active search for suspects was no longer under way. State police are taking over the investigation.

Summary