PARKERSBURG, Iowa (June 24, 2009)--Police Wednesday in Parkersburg, Iowa charged a 24-year-old former player in the shooting death of a prominent Iowa high school football coach and later said the man was supposed to have been taken to a hospital psychiatric ward after taking a baseball bat to a home Saturday night in Cedar Rapids and then leading officers on a car chase.

Mark Becker was arrested shortly after Aplington-Parkersburg High School football coach Ed Thomas was shot several times at about 8 a.m. Wednesday in the school's weight room.

Authorities say students were in the room when Thomas was shot, but no one else was injured.

Thomas died at a Waterloo hospital.

Becker was charged with first-degree murder and remained in the Butler County Jail Wednesday afternoon.

Thomas had just finished his 37th season of coaching at the school in Parkersburg, which was hit by a mile-wide EF-5 tornado that killed seven residents in May 2008.

Cedar Falls Police Chief Jeff Olson said Butler County Sheriff's deputies were supposed to take Becker to a hospital psychiatric unit after the Saturday night incident.

Olson said Becker was released at some point, but said his department wasn't notified.

It wasn't immediately clear if the deputies took Becker to the hospital.

The Sheriff's Office declined to comment.

The incident Wednesday was eerily familiar to the April 2005 shooting that left Canton High School Head Coach and Athletic Director Gary Joe Kinne seriously injured.

The former Baylor all-conference linebacker was shot and seriously wounded during a confrontation at the high school field house.

He required several surgeries, including procedures on his severely damaged liver.

The father of a Canton High School athlete was arrested and charged in connection with the shooting.