13 hours, two mass shootings ... and 29 innocent lives snuffed out
Massacres at supermarket and bar leave the U.S. reeling from yet more gun violence
TWO mass shootings within hours of each other have left 29 dead in the US.
In the first atrocity, a gunman stormed a supermarket in El Paso, Texas, after posting a Right-wing rant about a ‘Hispanic invasion’.
Patrick Crusius, 21, walked from aisle to aisle killing 20 shoppers – with children likely to be among the dead.
Just 13 hours later, a second killer began firing at revellers queueing outside a bar in Dayton, Ohio. Connor Betts, 24, murdered nine in a minute before he was gunned down by police.
The body of his 22-year- old sister was found in a car nearby along with her wounded boyfriend, according to reports.
Donald Trump last night condemned the shootings as an ‘act of cowardice’, adding: ‘Hate has no place in our country.’
Vowing to ‘take care’ of the problem, the President said the gunmen were ‘really very seriously mentally ill’.
However, critics said the President’s anti-immigration rhetoric was partly to blame. About 80 per cent of the population in El Paso are of Latino origin.
Mexico last night confirmed six of its nationals had died in the shooting and threatened to take legal action against the US for failing to protect its citizens.
Texas killer Crusius stormed a Walmart store in the border city of El Paso on Saturday morning after posting in an online manifesto that his country was ‘rotting from the inside out’. He drove more than 650 miles from the middle- class home he shared with his grandparents in a suburb of Dallas with the aim of killing as many Latinos as possible, it has emerged. Crusius, a cinema usher from a religious family, walked into the Walmart packed with families wearing ear defenders, glasses and brandishing an AK-47 assault rifle.
Stalking the aisles, he killed 20 shoppers and left 26 injured – including a four-month-old baby.
Among the dead was 25-year-old Jordan Anchondo, who died protecting her two-month- old son when she threw herself on top of him. Witness Miguel Rodriguez said the killer ‘started shooting everyone, aisle by aisle, with rage’.
Crusius started his attack by targeting parents and children raising money for charity outside the Walmart, it emerged.
Norma Coca said her daughter and son-in-law were outside the supermarket raising funds for their five-year-old son’s baseball team.
Mrs Coca said her daughter was shot three times in the leg and her son-in-law, who remains in a critical condition, was shot in the leg and back. Officials confirmed the incident was being treated as an act of domestic terrorism and that they would ask for Crusius, who was arrested at the scene, to face the death penalty.
In a four-page document believed to have been uploaded by Crusius on forum 8chan, a site popular with Right- wing fanatics, he claimed minutes before the massacre that his actions were an ‘act of preservation’ and said he did not plan to kill Americans. He said he supported Brenton Tarrant – who this year killed 51 Muslims at mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand – and spoke of European ‘comrades’ who were unable to ‘repel the invaders’.
‘I am honoured to head the fight to reclaim my country from destruction,’ he wrote. 8chan has become a mecca for fanatics with regular posts about users hoping to ‘beat’ Tarrant’s death toll.
Crusius has already confessed to wanting to kill as many Mexicans as possible, according to sources.
Although an avid Trump supporter, the gunman’s actions were not fuelled by the President’s antiimmigration rhetoric, he claimed – adding that his views had ‘predated’ the US leader’s.
However, Crusius’s social media activity includes posts about Trump and the need for a wall at the border. He is also reported to have shared an image of guns laid out to spell Trump.
Democratic Presidential hopeful Beto O’Rourke, who lives in El Paso, said: ‘We’ve had a rise in hate crimes every single one of the last three years, during an administration where you have a President who’s called Mexicans rapists and criminals.’
Last night a former neighbour said Crusius had kept pet snakes and was ‘very much a loner’. It also emerged that his father is a former drug addict turned therapist who claims he has spoken to Jesus.
In a memoir seen by Mail Online,
‘There were bodies everywhere’
Bryan Crusius, 63, said his drink and drug problem had led him to be separated from his children. As America was still reeling from the El Paso shootings, a second gunman stormed a bar in an area popular for its nightlife in Dayton at 1.07am on Sunday. Armed with a rifle firing 223-calibre rounds, Connor Betts killed nine and left 27 wounded in the space of one minute. Witnesses said he was dressed in black body armour, holding a ‘ very large gun’ and carrying extra magazines. Had police not intervened within a minute, hundreds more could have been killed, the town’s mayor said last night. It was not known last night if the shooting was a copycat attack. Betts was stopped on his way to a second bar when a bystander grabbed the barrel of his rifle.
He drew a handgun but was shot as police arrived. Witnesses said there were bodies ‘everywhere you looked’. Survivor Anthony Reynolds described how he heard ‘complete rapid fire for like one minute’. The latest US gun outrage brings the number of mass shootings this year to 251.
Boris Johnson said last night he was ‘deeply saddened’, adding on Twitter: ‘Our hearts go out to the victims and all those affected by these appalling acts of violence.’