Grieving city split over Trump’s visit
United States
El Paso has opened a grief centre to help people cope with last weekend’s mass shooting at a Walmart, in which 22 people were killed and many others wounded.
The centre opened yesterday, a day before US President Donald Trump was due to visit the border city, much to the chagrin of some Democrats and other residents who say his fiery rhetoric has fostered the kind of antiimmigrant hatred that may have motivated the attack.
A protest rally was planned for Trump’s arrival, which organisers said would confront white supremacy and demand gun control.
El Paso police chief Greg Allen said investigators believed the suspected gunman, Patrick Crusius, 21, posted an antiimmigrant screed that appeared online shortly before the attack. Crusius is being held on capital murder charges, though federal prosecutors are also considering charging him with hate crimes.
Several of the wounded remained hospitalised yesterday, including at least one in a critical condition.
Trump is also expected to visit Dayton, Ohio, where another gunman killed nine people and wounded many others in an attack only hours after the El Paso mass shooting.
El Paso’s Republican mayor, Dee Margo, defended the decision to welcome the president while acknowledging there would be blowback. ‘‘I’m already getting the emails and the phone calls.’’
Margo has previously criticised Trump for suggesting that El Paso, which had fewer homicides in all of 2017 than the death toll in last Sunday’s attack, was a dangerous and unsafe place.
Democratic Congresswoman Veronica Escobar and presidential candidate Beto O’rourke said Trump would not be welcome in their home town. –AP