El Paso shooting investigated as domestic terrorism
EL PASO, Texas — Federal investigators in El Paso, Texas, said they were treating the massacre at a Walmart that killed 20 people and wounded another 27 on 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 F. Bash, the U.S. attorney for the Western District of Texas, who said he had consulted with Attorney General William Barr.
A federal law enforcement official confirmed that a 2,300-word anti-immigrant manifesto that was posted online minutes before the shooting was written by the suspect, whom authorities identified as Patrick Crusius, 21.
Jaime Esparza, the El Paso district attorney, said his office had charged Crusius with capital murder and that he would seek the death penalty in any state prosecution.
The FBI’S Domestic Terrorism-hate Crimes Fusion Cell is investigating the case as a possible hate crime and act of domestic terrorism and has served three search warrants in the Dallas area, said Emmerson Buie Jr., the special agent in charge in El Paso.
The rifle used in the shooting was purchased legally, and the gunman was allowed to carry it openly, said Greg Allen, the El Paso police chief.
In interviews with authorities, the suspect “basically didn’t hold anything back,” Allen said.
Rod Rosenstein, the former deputy attorney general, wrote on Twitter late Saturday that “killing random civilians to spread a political message is terrorism.”
“F.B.I. classifies it as domestic terrorism, but ‘white terrorism’ is more precise,” Rosenstein wrote. “Many of the killers are lone-wolf losers indoctrinated to hate through the internet, just like Islamic terrorists.”
The suspect had “limited” encounters with the Allen Police Department, authorities said. In a statement released by the department, which is in a suburb of Dallas, the agency said it had three contacts with the suspect in its database.
The first was in 2014, when he was a juvenile and was reported as a runaway. Those who first reported him missing to police later called back within 30 minutes and stated that he had returned home without incident.
The second contact was in November 2016, according to the police statement. The suspect was one of eight passengers on a Plano Independent School District bus that was involved in a minor traffic accident. No one was injured.
The third wason March 3. The suspect called the Allen police to report “a false residential alarm” at his grandparents’ home, where he lived.
Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas orderedthat all state flags be lowered to half-staff until sundown Thursday in memory of the victims.
The Roman Catholic bishop of El Paso called for prayers to help guide the city as it grapples with shock and anguish. He also demanded more: That the nation challenge the hatred he believed was a driving force behind the massacre, the same hatred he said he saw in the treatment of migrant families trying to enter the United States.
“In the last several months, the borderlands have shown the world that generosity, compassion and human dignity are more powerful than the forces of division,” Bishop Mark J. Seitz of El Paso said in a statement. “The great sickness of our time is that we have forgotten how to be compassionate, generous and humane. Everything is competition. Everything is greed. Everything is cold. Tenderness and the love that knows no borders are crucified in a whirlwind of deadly self-seeking, fear and vindictiveness.”
The Del Sol Medical Center in El Paso said it was treating 11 patients from the shooting, ranging in age from 35 to 82. Three were in critical condition, the center said, and the others were stable; at least one was expected to be released Sunday.
Dr. Stephen Flaherty, the center’s medical director of trauma, said seven of the patients had already undergone surgery and that many more operations would probably be necessary in the next few days.
“The injuries that we saw here were very significant injuries,” Flaherty said. “Major amounts of tissue injury happened yesterday.”
Doctors, nurses and administrators who were off duty Saturday raced to the hospital to help treat victims, he said.
The hospital also received a large supply of blood from donors after the shooting. Officials urged people in the area to continue donating through the week.
David Shimp, the hospital’s chief executive, said some injured patients were brought in unconscious and that staff members had to scramble to identify them, but by Sunday morning they had all been identified through family members. He said at least one patient at the hospital had been injured by a fall rather than directly by gunfire.
At the El Paso Children’s Hospital, Dr. Nagela Saintethomas said she was on duty Saturday morning when details about the shooting were announced on the intercom system.
“We heard the first call over the radio,” she said, “Then you hear the next one. The next one. Then you’re realizing something is happening. They just kept coming in overhead. Level one trauma. Gunshot wounds. Mass shooting attack.”
Ultimately, only a few children injured in the attack were admitted to the hospital.
Back at work Sunday morning, she said that the hospital staff was taking time to debrief and to process what had happened.
“You know when it’s happening, you’re just trying to remain calm, just to make sure we’re prepared to handle whatever comes in,” she said. “Once the adrenaline wears off and you go to your car is when you realize all the impact of what has happened.”
The West Texas office of Customs and Border Protection said its officers would not be conducting enforcement operations at El Paso hospitals, shelters or a middle school where a reunification center for families has been set up.
“We stand in support of our community,” the office wrote on Twitter late Saturday.
Officials said Border Patrol agents were helping the El Paso Police Department with building safety and security, traffic control and emergency medical care.
David Shimp, chief executive of the Del Sol Medical Center in El Paso, said at the news conference Sunday morning that anyone with injuries should seek medical attention, regardless of citizenship status.
“Undocumented citizen or not, we’re going to do everything we can to make sure we’re doing everything we can for them,” Shimp said.
The Walmart where the shooting happened is less than 10 minutes’ drive from Bridge of the Americas linking El Paso and its sister city in Mexico, Ciudad Juárez, and is a regular destination for Mexican tourists.
Rosa María Silva, 42, and Ivonne Moreno, also 42, both church employees in Ciudad Juárez, were on their way to shop at the Walmart on Saturday morning when they found their way blocked by police cars and ambulances. It was about 10:30 a.m., just after the shooting.
“We weren’t in there through a miracle of God,” Silva said. Moreno’s mother, who lives in El Paso, drove them to her house, and the three of them spent the rest of the day hunkered down, afraid to go out.
Only as dusk fell did the pair venture out.
“It’s sad that there are people who discriminate so much,” Silva said. “But we aren’t going to judge everybody because of one person.”
At least six Mexican citizens were among the injured, the Mexican government reported. President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said Sunday morning that there were also Mexicans among the dead.
The Mexican government has refrained from commenting on the gunman’s possible targeting of Hispanics. But residents of El Paso, a majority Latino city where many people belong to extended families with members on both sides of the border, said there was little doubt that racism drove the gunman.
“He had a mission to kill people, but why Hispanics?” said Carmen Dominguez, 59, a hotel room attendant. “Mexicans are very hardworking people. They were shopping for their kids. They save their money all year round to shop for their kids.”