TEXAS TOLL RISES TO 22
Prosecutors build capital case vs. El Paso defendant
The death toll in a Walmart shooting rose to 22 as residents of El Paso, Texas, tried to settle into their new reality Monday and politicians debated whether President Donald Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric contributed to the massacre.
Officials updated totals to 22 killed and 25 injured. The quick, devastating violence left the city reeling – El Paso had only 23 homicides in all of last year.
Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke unleashed a profanity-laced tirade on Sunday when asked whether Trump could turn things around and help the situation in the border town he calls home. Media outlets around the country, and around the world, decried his role in inspiring a shooter who gunned down 20 people. The result, according to another El Paso-based member of Congress, is a Hispanic population increasingly in the crosshairs.
“All of this has happened because Hispanic people have been dehumanized. They have been dehumanized by the president, by his enablers, by other politicians,” Rep. Veronica Escobar, D-Texas, said Monday morning on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” “This is one of the lowest points in American history, and if we don’t recognize this as such, we will not have the turning point that we so desperately need as a country.”
Trump, who spoke little Sunday about the mass shootings that stunned the nation over the weekend, delivered a speech from the White House on Monday in which he bashed the “twisted monster” who committed the El Paso shooting.
The president confirmed that Patrick Crusius wrote a 2,356-word “manifesto” that was posted online shortly before the shooting and was filled with “racist hate.” Crusius, who is white, laced his manifesto with anti-immigrant and racist rhetoric, saying he advocates a plan to divide the nation into territories by race.
“In our voice, our nation must condemn racism, bigotry and white supremacy,” Trump said. “These sinister ideologies must be defeated. Cultural change is hard, but each of us can choose to build a culture that celebrates the inherent worth and dignity of every human life.”
The president did not call for any action to limit the availability of guns in the U.S. But Trump called for the passage of “red flag” laws that allow law enforcement officials to take firearms away from people who are deemed to “pose a grave risk to public safety.” He also urged the Department of Justice to propose legislation ensuring those who commit hate crimes and mass murders face the death penalty.
Back in El Paso, investigators continued gathering evidence in the capital murder case against Crusius, 21, of Allen, Texas. He was booked into the El Paso County Jail early Sunday. He is accused of walking into the Walmart near a shopping mall Saturday morning and opening fire, setting off panic as hundreds of customers and employees fled, police said.
Local officials had already identified Crusius as the author of the “manifesto” that bashed the invasion of the U.S. by Hispanic immigrants, echoing some of the language Trump has used when describing Mexican and Central American migrants who have tried to enter the country in recent years.
“From the manifesto that we first saw, we attribute that manifesto directly to him,” El Paso Police Chief Greg Allen said Sunday afternoon.
District Attorney Jaime Esparza said Sunday that he intends to seek the death penalty against Cruisius. And U.S. Attorney John Bash said federal authorities were treating the shooting as a domestic terrorism case and were “seriously considering” hate crime charges.
Allen said Crusius is cooperating with investigators. He was arrested but not hurt by police officers who responded to the Walmart.
Crusius graduated from high school in 2016 and enrolled in Collin College in the fall of 2017, according to the school. He was enrolled as a student until this year’s spring term.
His grandparents, Larry and Cynthia Brown, released a statement Sunday expressing their devastation. A family friend of the grandparents read the statement aloud, KDFW reported.
“We are devastated by the events of El Paso, and pray for the victims of this tragedy. Patrick Crusius is our grandson. He lived with us in our house in Allen, Texas, while he attended Collin College. He moved out of our house six weeks ago, and has spent a few nights here while we were out of town. His driver’s license and mailing address were at our house in Allen,” part of the statement reads.
The manifesto said the influx of Hispanics will overwhelm the state’s voting bloc of white people and could turn Texas, historically a Republican stronghold, toward the Democratic Party. The writer of the manifesto denied he was a white supremacist but suggests “race mixing” is destroying the nation and recommends dividing the nation into racebased enclaves.
The author also claims his views in support of a border wall predate Trump’s campaign and dismisses any attempt to blame the attack on the president as “fake news.”