By Tawnell D. Hobbs, Valerie Bauerlein and Alicia A. Caldwell
EL PASO, Texas—This city that has been a hub of the nation’s border crisis was rocked by a mass shooting whose perpetrator, authorities said, appears to have written an anti-immigrant manifesto.
Authorities say they are treating Saturday’s massacre at a Walmart store in this heavily Hispanic city, in which 20 people were killed and 26 injured, as a case of domestic terrorism. It could also fall under state hate crimes laws, El Paso Police Chief Greg Allen said at a news conference.
Although the suspect—who has been charged with capital murder, according to El Paso police—hasn’t been officially named, law-enforcement officials told The Wall Street Journal that he has been identified as Patrick Crusius of suburban Dallas, a drive of more than nine hours east from El Paso.
Chief Allen told reporters Sunday that “it’s beginning to look more solidly” like the online manifesto, scrutinized by investigators, was written by the shooter.
The anti-immigrant writing described a potential mass shooting as a response to an “invasion of Texas” by Hispanic immigrants, according to a law-enforcement official.
An apparent copy of the manifesto online also blamed corporations for encouraging immigration, both legal and illegal, in order to access low-cost labor, as well as for ongoing environmental destruction. It claimed that Democrats are pro-immigrant in order to appeal to Hispanic voters and that some Republicans are as well, due to influence from the business community. The manifesto’s writer said automation and immigration are destroying employment opportunities.
Investigators believe the shooter bought his gun legally and acted alone, the law-enforcement official said.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation said it was too soon to ascribe a motive to the shooting. Chief Allen said the suspect has been forthcoming with information. “He basically didn’t hold anything back,” Chief Allen said. “He expected to die…They don’t always follow through.” It couldn’t immediately be determined if Mr. Crusius had an attorney.
Mr. Crusius’s grandfather, Larry Brown, said in an interview that until recently his grandson lived with him and his wife, Cynthia, in Allen while attending a nearby community college. He said Mr. Crusius moved out about six weeks ago.
“We are devastated by the events in El Paso and pray for the victims of this tragedy,” Mr. Brown said. He asked for privacy and said he and his wife would only be talking to law-enforcement agencies.
The suspect used an AK-style semiautomatic rifle, according to an initial investigation, the chief said. The shooter was able to quickly kill or wound many people due to geography and timing, choosing a sunny Saturday afternoon at a busy shopping center, Chief Allen said. “The capability of the weapon allowed that and then his intent and then the location where he chose was a Walmart,” he said.
The first calls reporting an active shooter came in at 10:39 a.m., and police were on the scene six minutes later, by 10:45 a.m., Chief Allen said. Thousands of people were evacuated from the Walmart and a nearby mall, officials said, and some family members were separated in the chaos.
Ruby Vazquez was standing in the Walmart’s money center to pay some bills when she heard the first shots. She said it sounded like someone was outside shooting before the gunman came into the store and began firing. She and about a half-dozen other people, including an employee who had been shot in the hand, huddled together in the money center, the 41-year-old said.
She called her sister, Erika Contreras, who was in the store’s frozen-food section near the back with her daughter and the women’s mother, to warn them. By then, the trio was running toward a rear door.
Ms. Contreras, 29, said she could hear the gunshots as she ran out an employee exit with her 7-year-old daughter and 70-year-old mother. “It sounded like clapping,” she said.
After the shooting ended, Ms. Vazquez headed toward the front door to find her sister, niece and mother. On the way, she walked past multiple victims in the aisles. “I saw a little girl in a little cart,” said Ms. Vazquez, a medical-records clerk at the nearby Fort Bliss Army post. “I saw elderly people on the floor, full of blood. There was blood everywhere. It was horrible.”
Ms. Vazquez said she never saw the shooter, as everyone hiding in the payment center kept their heads down, trying not to be noticed.
“I really just can’t come to any comprehension why someone can, you know, do this,” Ms. Vazquez said, crying as she recounted the events.
El Paso, a city of 680,000 in western Texas that is more than 80% Hispanic, is near one of the busiest border crossings between the U.S. and Mexico and is at the center of the migrant crisis along the Southern border. The Walmart where the shooting occurred is just a few miles from the line separating the two countries.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection, whose agents were among the law-enforcement agencies that responded to the shooting Saturday, said it wouldn’t be checking the immigration status of survivors or family members at hospital reunification centers, or shelters—a statement apparently made to quell fears in the migrant community.
Mexico’s foreign minister, Marcelo Ebrard, said Sunday that seven Mexican citizens were among the dead and at least seven were wounded, including a 10-year-old girl who was shot in the leg.
He said in a press conference that his country considers the shooting to be a terrorist act and will consider taking legal action against the suspected perpetrator and whoever provided him with the weapon.
Mexico will also send a diplomatic note to the U.S. government asking it to take a “clear and forceful” position against hate crimes and convene a conference of other Latin American countries to craft a joint defense of the Spanish language and Hispanic culture in the U.S., he said.
“Mexico is indignant,” said Mr. Ebrard. “But we will not pit hatred against hatred.”
John Cornyn, a U.S. senator from Texas, showed up at a makeshift memorial outside the El Paso Walmart on Sunday. “To see somebody…try to start a war between our cultures is simply unacceptable,” Mr. Cornyn said. The Republican lawmaker called for the death penalty for the shooter.
A Walmart spokesman said the company was working closely with law enforcement. Saturday’s rampage was the second shooting at a Walmart this week. On Tuesday, in Mississippi, a Walmart employee who had been suspended last weekend shot and killed two other workers in the store, spokesman Randy Hargrove said.
“I can’t believe I’m sending a note like this twice in one week,” Walmart Inc. Chief Executive Doug McMillon said in an Instagram post on Saturday evening. “My heart aches for the community in El Paso, especially the associates and customers at store 2201 and the families of the victims of today’s tragedy. I’m praying for them and I hope you will join me.”
Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, called Saturday “one of the most deadly days in the history of Texas.”
On Twitter, President Trump called the shooting “not only tragic, it was an act of cowardice. I know that I stand with everyone in this Country to condemn today’s hateful act. There are no reasons or excuses that will ever justify killing innocent people.”
For more information, go to: http://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/
No comments:
Post a Comment