El Paso death toll climbs to 22.
EL PASO, TEXAS >> Jordan Anchondo, 24, gave birth to her baby boy Paul Gilbert two months ago. At an El Paso Walmart, she gave her life to save his.
Anchondo was holding the newborn as she and her husband, Andre Anchondo, 23, shopped late Saturday morning. A gunman stormed in, opening fire on shoppers while wearing headphones to dull the loud bursts of gunfire from his AK47-style rifle. Anchondo shielded the baby as she was being shot. Her husband tried to shield both of them, relatives said.
Anchondo and her husband were killed. The baby was grazed by a bullet.
Paul Gilbert — a massshooting orphan — had two broken fingers and was being treated by doctors.
His parents were among the 22 victims in one of the deadliest mass shootings in Texas history and one of the latest in a string of attacks that has shaken the nation. They were as binational as El Paso, the sister city of Ciudad Juarez in Mexico, part of the daily stream of people who cross the bridges in border cities to shop.
It was a Saturday at a Walmart at the Texas border, but it could have been a Saturday at a Walmart anywhere in America. At the precise moment the gunman walked in 10:39 a.m. shoppers were in the middle of such mundane routines that it obscured the lives of Americans and Mexicans who were anything but.
The youngest was 15. The oldest was 90. Thirteen were U.S. citizens, seven were Mexican nationals, one was German, and one other’s status was undetermined. Twelve were men; 10 were women.
Arturo Benavides, 60, an Army veteran, drove a bus for the El Paso public transit system for nearly 20 years before retiring in 2013. He loved talking to family and strangers about both experiences.
“He would tell them about the military or his Army days,” Benavides’ goddaughter, Jacklin Luna, said. “He was super, super giving. Caring.”
Benavides and his wife, Patricia, went to Walmart together Saturday, but at 10:39 a.m., he was in line at the cash register, and she was sitting on a bench by the bathrooms. They had always been more together than apart: He had spent more than half his life with her. When the gunman opened fire, Benavides was killed, but Patricia survived. She had been pushed into a bathroom stall for safety.
Javier Amir Rodriguez, 15, had been a Scorpion: He played soccer last year as a freshman for the Horizon High School Scorpions in nearby Horizon City. He no longer attended the school, but he left a strong impression. On Monday night, the Scorpions soccer squad was gathering once more: this time for a vigil for their slain friend Amir.
The gunman, who lived in the Dallas suburb of Allen and had turned 21 one week before the shooting, surrendered to authorities. Before the attack, he posted a four-page anti-immigrant manifesto online railing against “the Hispanic invasion of Texas” and “all the problems these invaders cause and will cause.”
Two days after the shooting, many residents said they condemned the hateful and racist message in the manifesto and mourned a punctured sense of safety the city has long cherished.