‘A good, loving man’: Family remembers Timothy Smith, killed during Texas shooting

BRYAN, Texas — Family and friends of Timothy Smith, the man killed in Thursday’s shooting at a Texas cabinet company facility, remembered the 40-year-old father of two as a kind person who enjoyed his work.

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Smith died after a gunman opened fire at the Kent Moore Cabinets facility in Bryan. The accused gunman, identified as Larry Winston Bollin, 27, of Grimes County, also worked at the cabinet facility. According to court documents, a witness working in the building said Bollin targeted Smith first, shooting at him multiple times, WFAA reported. The witness added that when he ran out of bullets, Bollin looked at everyone, reloaded, then continued to shoot at other people who were trying to flee from the scene.

Four other people were wounded in the shooting. A fifth person at the facility, located at the Brazos County Industrial Park, was hospitalized after an asthma attack, while a state trooper, Juan Rojas Tovar, was wounded while giving chase in Grimes County.

“We’re all still in shock,” Smith’s sister, Brittany Jackl, told KXAN from her home near Jacksonville, Florida. “I don’t think it’s really all hit us yet.”

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Posted by Brittany Ann Smith Jackl on Friday, April 9, 2021

Jackl said she found about the shooting from her mother, the television station reported.

“Mom contacted me and said, ‘I wanted you to know there’s an active shooter at your brother’s work,’” Jack told WFAA.

>> Texas shooting: 1 dead, 5 injured at Bryan business; wounded trooper identified

Jackl described her brother as a good man who was likely to work too late.

“He really loved working there,” Jackl told WFAA. “He was really proud of that position and the people that he worked with.”

Friends agreed.

Besides his job at the cabinet factory, Smith worked in the hospitality industry as a server, KBTX reported. Chef Tai Lee, the owner of Paolo’s Italian Kitchen in College Station, said Smith was one of his top employees for more than five years.

“I just saw him about a week ago when I came in here to have a dinner with our friends as well, so it is quite unreal,” Lee told the television station. “He had a big heart and a big personality and a great smile. Always just joyous, you know, even if he was having some personal challenges for financial reasons during the downturn, he was always optimistic.”

Gerald Smith, Smith’s manager for the past six months at Paolo’s, said he was “heartbroken.”

“He made friends with every single person that he talked to. Every customer that came in, he made lifelong friends with them,” King told KBTX. “People he knew from his experience here and Maddens (another restaurant in College Station). They all loved him. They asked for him. He was just a very passionate man.”

Jackl said her brother enjoyed living in Bryan, a small, close-knit community. Smith married his current wife two years ago, according to his sister, who described their relationship as “sickeningly sweet.”

“It’s almost annoying, like teenagers in love, the way that they talk to each other, the way they treat each other,” Jackl told KXAN. “They were just madly in love with each other and excited about their life and starting a family.”

Smith is survived by two sons, ages 14 and 8, from a previous marriage.

A Brazos County judge set Bollin’s bail at $2.2 million -- $1.2 million for a first-degree murder charge and $1 million for the attempted murder of Tovar, KXAN reported. Bollin also faces five counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon in relation to the shooting, the television station reported.

“My brother was a good, loving man, and nobody deserves that, nobody,” Jackl told KXAN. “It’s not OK.

“I don’t understand why my nephews now have to grow up without a daddy,” Jackl told the television station. “I don’t think I’m ever going to understand that.”

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