Santa Fe New Mexican

Two mass shootings in 24 hours stun U.S.

Many nearly numb to attacks were jarred by rapid repeat

- By Campbell Robertson and Julie Bosman

On Sunday, Americans woke up to news of a shooting rampage in an entertainm­ent district in Dayton, Ohio, where a man wearing body armor shot and killed nine people, including his own sister. Hours earlier, a 21-year-old with a rifle entered a Walmart in

El Paso and killed 20 people.

In a country that has become nearly numb to men with guns opening fire in schools, at concerts and in churches,

the back-to-back bursts of gun violence in less than 24 hours were enough to leave the public stunned and shaken. The shootings ground the 2020 presidenti­al campaign to a halt, reignited a debate on gun control and called into question the increasing­ly angry words directed at immigrants on the southern border in recent weeks by right-wing pundits and President Donald Trump. “It’s outrageous,” said Terrion Foster, who works in accounting and lives in Kansas City, Mo., where he was out shopping at a farmers market near downtown Sunday afternoon. “It’s really sad because I feel like you can’t go anywhere and be safe. I’m 50 years old and I didn’t think I’d be alive to see some of the things that are going on today.”

The shootings prompted Republican­s, including Trump, to condemn the gunmen’s actions and offer support to the people of Dayton and El Paso. Democrats urged Congress to take action and pass stricter gun laws. “We have a responsibi­lity to the people we serve to act,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a statement.

Residents of El Paso were on edge, grimly aware of a manifesto posted online that the authoritie­s said was written by the suspect, Patrick Crusius, 21, who was in police custody. The

manifesto spoke of a “Hispanic invasion of Texas,” described an imminent attack by the writer and railed against immigrants.

Federal investigat­ors in El Paso said they were treating the massacre at the Walmart that also wounded 27 Saturday morning as an act of domestic terrorism, and prosecutor­s said they were considerin­g federal hate crime charges. They were also considerin­g federal gun charges that would carry the death penalty.

“We are going to conduct a methodical and careful investigat­ion with a view toward those charges,” said John Bash, the U.S. attorney for the Western District of Texas, who said he had consulted with Attorney General William Barr.

In Bellbrook, Ohio, a quiet suburb of Dayton that residents described as a “utopia,” the typical Sunday morning peace was disrupted by police and news media who swarmed the cul-de-sacs and sidewalks of the neighborho­od, where Connor Betts, the 24-year-old suspect, is believed to have lived.

Brad Howard, 25, who had known Betts since before kindergart­en and rode the bus with him to school for years, opened his phone and saw the news of his classmate Sunday morning. “It was just another one of those things,” he said. “Just a kick in the teeth.”

Theo Gainey, who lived for 10 years down the block from the Betts family and was a year ahead of Connor Betts in school, remembered him as a “bit of an outcast,” ostracized in large part because of threats he made at school that got him into serious trouble.

“He got arrested on the school bus” for the threats, said Gainey, who added that he was on the bus himself when it happened. He recalled Betts being a freshman or sophomore at the time. Gainey, 25, did not remember the specifics of the threats but said Betts had to leave school for the rest of that year. When he returned, “the threat thing followed him, and people didn’t want to hang out with him.”

Betts died during the shooting, and his motive appeared unclear. Some details about him began to emerge Sunday: He attended local public schools in Bellbrook, took classes at Sinclair Community College in the Dayton area and was majoring in psychology. He had been working at a gas station and was registered to continue classes in the upcoming fall semester.

He was charged in May 2016 with operating a vehicle while under the influence in 2015, and a ticket said he had a blood alcohol content of 0.091, over the legal limit of 0.08. Betts pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of having physical control of a vehicle while under the influence.

Witnesses to the shooting, which occurred in the early morning hours Sunday, described a scene of horror and chaos.

James Williams, 50, had been seated with friends on the patio at Ned Peppers, a bar near the shooting. He and his friends got up and walked across the street when suddenly, they heard shots.

He and a friend rushed back to the bar and found bodies all over the floor. Officers at the scene were asking for belts to use as tourniquet­s, so Williams took his belt off. His friend attempted CPR on one of the victims, pumping his chest and urging the man to hang on. He didn’t survive.

“You just wouldn’t believe the people who have pulled together and tried to save these people, and there wasn’t any saving,” Williams said. “Most of them were probably dead.”

The shooting began at 1:07 a.m. on East Fifth Street in Dayton’s Oregon entertainm­ent district, which was bustling with late-night revelers enjoying a warm summer evening, said Nan Whaley, the mayor of Dayton. Uniformed officers on routine patrol in the area responded, shooting and killing the gunman within one minute of his first gunshots, she said.

The gunman was wearing a mask, body armor and hearing protection, and he possessed a high-capacity magazine capable of holding 100 rounds, police said.

The nine victims were men and women ranging from 22 to 57 years old, including Betts’ sister, Megan, who was 22. Twenty-seven other people were wounded.

Authoritie­s said they still had not establishe­d a motive for the shooting. They said Betts arrived in the entertainm­ent district Saturday evening with his sister, Megan Betts, and another “companion.” Betts then split from the rest of the group for a period of time before opening fire, authoritie­s said.

Across the country, Americans tried to process the weekend of violence while going about their usual routines. On Sunday morning at the National Cathedral in Washington, the Rev. Leonard Hamlin spoke to Americans struggling to grasp the violence and loss of life on top of what can feel like a long list of national and personal struggles.

“Our real challenge is to look within,” he said. “If you are honest this morning, all of us need to be transforme­d a little bit more.”

In Cambridge, Mass., people said they had little hope that the events would lead to any policy changes.

“It’s dishearten­ing, I think, to see so many politician­s just keep doing the same kind of wash-rinse-repeat kind of cycle of: Mass shooting happens, and then it’s, tweet about thoughts and prayers, and then it becomes, ‘We can’t talk about political ideology, we can’t talk about this and that,’ ” said Greg Cameron, 31, who does marketing for a bike share company.

Laura Platt, 33, a physician, said she wanted to see better gun policies enacted, but had no expectatio­n that that would happen. “Nothing happened after Sandy Hook, so I think nothing’s going to happen after this,” she said.

Trump, who spent the weekend at his estate in Bedminster, N.J., thanked law enforcemen­t officials in both cities Sunday, declaring that “hate has no place in our country and we are going to take care of it.” He said that “a lot of things are in the works.”

Trump did not elaborate on that statement.

 ?? CELIA TALBOT TOBIN/NEW YORK TIMES ?? A prayer service takes place Saturday evening at St. Pius X Catholic Church in El Paso. In a country that has become nearly numb to men with guns opening fire in schools, at concerts and in churches, the back-to-back bursts of gun violence in less than 24 hours were enough to leave the public stunned and shaken.
CELIA TALBOT TOBIN/NEW YORK TIMES A prayer service takes place Saturday evening at St. Pius X Catholic Church in El Paso. In a country that has become nearly numb to men with guns opening fire in schools, at concerts and in churches, the back-to-back bursts of gun violence in less than 24 hours were enough to leave the public stunned and shaken.
 ?? JOHN MINCHILLO/ASSOCIATED PRESS ?? Mourners gather at the scene of a mass shooting for a vigil Sunday in Dayton, Ohio. Nine people in Ohio were killed in the second mass shooting in the U.S. in less than 24 hours.
JOHN MINCHILLO/ASSOCIATED PRESS Mourners gather at the scene of a mass shooting for a vigil Sunday in Dayton, Ohio. Nine people in Ohio were killed in the second mass shooting in the U.S. in less than 24 hours.

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