One year after a violent College Station shootout took the lives of three individuals, a Houston mother severely injured in the crossfire is finally sharing her thoughts on that fateful afternoon.
Barbara Holdsworth was helping her daughter move into an apartment just blocks from the Texas A&M University campus in August 2012 when she was shot twice while sitting in her car. Bullets flew for almost 45 minutes as gunman Tres Caffall battled with area police from a nearby home.
“I didn’t know what it was going to take to stop (it),” she tells KHOU Ch. 11 reporter Brad Woodard.
“What kept going through my mind was when is this going to end? It’s kind of the last thing I remember thinking . . . I just laid there, and I prayed, and I begged to hold on, and I thought about my children.”
With two bullet fragments still embedded near her heart, Holdsworth is recovering both physically and emotionally.
When the smoke cleared, the shooter and his landlord Chris Northcliffe would be found dead alongside local constable Brian Bachmann. Holdsworth and three other police officers all suffered gunshot wounds.
College Station authorities later revealed that Caffall — who struggled with mental health issues at the time — was intentionally targeting his victims.
With two bullet fragments still embedded near her heart, Holdsworth notes she is recovering both physically and emotionally a full year after the incident. Her thoughts continue to circle back to those who didn't survive the day.
“It’s humbling,” she says. “And it makes me wonder why I was the one who was spared. Hopefully, someday I’ll know.”
On Tuesday, hundreds of balloons were released into the skies above the College Station as area residents remembered those who lost their lives on Aug 13, 2012. The parents of constable Brian Bachmann were presented with a Presidential Medal of Honor awarded to their dead son, whose name now adorns a community park.
Watch the full KHOU report:
Barbara Holdsworth was helped her daughter move when she was shot twice during the gun battle.
