“This is a fairly significant event when you have a person that goes into a lobby of a sheriff’s office and starts a shootout,” Kootenai County Sheriff Robert Norris told reporters.

Cole said that “something just snapped” in him after “watching everything, just everything getting worse,” and that he wanted to do something “to the parties” because “they were in charge.”

An autopsy revealed that 71-year-old Dennis Eugene Schmitt had died of multiple blunt force injuries to his head, with his body also showing evidence of strangulation.

"Obviously, when you have someone on the run with a homicide warrant, on the run with a gun, it is a huge danger to the community," said Pennsylvania State Police Sergeant Richard Sizer.