At least 20 killed in Texas shooting
Suspect in custody; dozens more injured in El Paso mall area
EL PASO, TEXAS — A gunman wielding an assault-style rifle killed at least 20 people in a Texas border city and injured 26 more Saturday at a busy Walmart and shopping mall, authorities said, in the latest mass shooting to shatter a community and shake the country.
The attack sent shoppers racing for cover in a chaotic but all-too-familiar scene of carnage that prompted a massive police and medical response.
Most of the victims were believed to have been shot at a Walmart near the Cielo Vista Mall, police said, adding that the store was packed with as many as 3,000 people during the busy back-toschool shopping season.
“The scene was a horrific one,” said El Paso police Chief Greg Allen, who described many of those hurt as having life-threatening injuries. He also said police found a post online that may have been written by the suspect — one reason authorities are looking at whether it was a hate crime.
Two law enforcement officials familiar with the inquiry, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation, identified the suspect as Patrick Crusius, a 21-year-old man from a suburb near Dallas. He was taken into custody without incident.
“It is a tragedy beyond tragedy,” said El Paso Mayor Dee Margo, who became distraught while speaking to CNN. “We are just torn up beyond belief.”
Gov. Greg Abbott, who confirmed the number of victims at a news conference, called the shooting “a heinous and senseless act of violence” and said the state had deployed a number of law enforcement officers to the city.
President Donald Trump tweeted: “Reports are very bad, many killed.”
Presidential candidate and former Texas congressman Beto O’Rourke appeared shaken as he appeared at a candidate forum Saturday in Las Vegas shortly after news of the shooting in his hometown was reported. The Democrat said the shooting shatters “any illusion that we have that progress is inevitable” on tackling gun violence.
He said he heard early reports that the shooter might have had a military-style weapon, saying we need to “keep that (expletive) on the battlefield. Do not bring it into our communities.”
The shooting in El Paso was the deadliest American mass shooting since November 2017, when a gunman killed 26 people in a church in Sutherland Springs, Texas. It comes nearly a week after a gunman opened fire at a garlic festival in California, killing three and wounding 12 others.
The scene of the most recent carnage — a Walmart — is likely to become important symbolically in the debate over gun control. Walmart is one of the largest gun retailers in the world and has been under pressure to curtail sales.
Last year, the store announced it was changing the minimum age required to buy a firearm or ammunition at Walmart from 18 to 21 “in light of recent events,” according to a statement released by the company. The decision came two weeks after the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, that left 17 people dead.
The suspect in Saturday’s shooting sounds very much like past shooters — quiet, antisocial and a bit “strange,” according to people who grew up with him in Plano.
Crusius attended school with his twin sister Emily Crucius.
The school collectively thought of Patrick Crusius as “the strange one” of the siblings, according to two people who attended with them — both of whom requested their names not be published.
It is not clear how Crusius got from the Dallas area to El Paso, a roughly nine-hour drive.
Vanessa Saenz, a 37-year-old El Paso resident, was turning into the Walmart parking lot, with her mother and son, to buy the family’s weekly groceries when she heard a few pops that sounded like fireworks. She looked over and saw a man who seemed to be “dancing” in the air — and then she noticed a woman sprinting.
Saenz realized that the man had been shot and that these were no fireworks.
“My mom yelled, ‘Just go! Speed and just go!’ but of course there were people trying to dodge the bullets and running through the parking lot,” Saenz said.
She also caught a glimpse of the shooter, a white male who she said was wearing dark cargo pants, a black T-shirt, and some sort of earmuffs. He was around 5-foot-10, thin and carrying a rifle, she said.
He was just “shooting randomly,” Saenz said, and then he walked into the store and she lost sight of him.
Inside the Walmart, shoppers and employees raced to exit the store or even hide in shelves. Witnesses said Good Samaritans used their own cars to transport victims to hospitals.
Video posted on Twitter showed customers at one department store being evacuated with their hands up. “Hands in the air!” an officer shouts in the footage.