Thousands remember El Paso victims
Leaders from both sides of border join memorial
EL PASO, Texas — Leaders from both sides of the U.s.-mexico border told thousands of people gathered in a baseball stadium in El Paso Wednesday that love will triumph over hatred in the wake of a mass shooting by a man who authorities believe targeted Mexicans at a Walmart store in the Texas border city.
People lined up hours before the memorial and packed the stadium in downtown El Paso that could hold about 8,000.
Nine circles and 22 stars formed by luminarias — traditional lanterns made from paper bags, sand, and LED lights — adorned the field in honor of the nine people killed in the Dayton, Ohio, mass shooting and the 22 El Paso shooting victims.
The ceremony at Southwest University Park officially commemorated those killed in the largely Latino city by a gunman who police say confessed to driving from the Dallas area. Most of the dead had Hispanic last names, and eight were Mexican nationals. Nearly two dozen others were injured.
“Hate will never overcome our love. Hate will never overcome who we are,” El Paso Mayor Dee Margo said.
“We are a bilingual family,” he said. “We are successful because of our people. There is nowhere in North America like El Paso-juárez.”
Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott received a huge applause from the crowd in the predominantly Democratic city when he said that he would “dismantle the purveyors of hate.”
Earlier in the day, Abbott announced that the state would add manpower to gang investigations of white nationalist groups in the wake of the shooting. He also said Texas would create a new domestic terrorism unit to help “root out the extremist ideologies that fuel hatred and violence in our state.”
Authorities said Wednesday they have finished processing the scene at Walmart for evidence. El Paso police said they are returning control of the property to Walmart.
Walmart spokeswoman Lemia Jenkins said the store remains a “secure location with controlled access.”
Patrick Crusius, 21, is charged with capital murder in the 22 deaths. An online rant investigators have attributed to him speaks of a “Hispanic invasion of Texas” and theories of non-white immigrants replacing whites.
On Wednesday, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said he wants the United States to extradite Crusius so that he can also be tried in Mexico.