The El Paso gunman stopped at a Walmart where 22 innocent people were gunned down because he was lost and hungry, say police.
Patrick Crusius, 21, is accused of targeting Hispanics and immigrants in Saturday's mass shooting in the city on the US border with Mexico. He stopped at the department store after travelling about 11 hours to El Paso, Texas, from his home in the Dallas suburb of Allen, more than 600 miles away. The gunman stopped for food and cased the store looking for Mexicans to kill, and later told police following his arrest that he set out to kill as many Mexicans as he could, it is claimed. Prosecutors will seek the death penalty if Crusius is convicted of capital murder in a case that is being treated as domestic terrorism and a possible hate crime.
Patrick Crusius, 21, is accused of targeting Hispanics and immigrants in Saturday's mass shooting in the city on the US border with Mexico. He stopped at the department store after travelling about 11 hours to El Paso, Texas, from his home in the Dallas suburb of Allen, more than 600 miles away. The gunman stopped for food and cased the store looking for Mexicans to kill, and later told police following his arrest that he set out to kill as many Mexicans as he could, it is claimed. Prosecutors will seek the death penalty if Crusius is convicted of capital murder in a case that is being treated as domestic terrorism and a possible hate crime.
El Paso Police Chief Greg Allen told reporters: "As soon he got here he was lost in the neighbourhood."After that, he found his way to the Walmart because we understand he was hungry and that's about as far as I can go without getting into too much detail."Asked if Walmart was the target, the police chief said: “No, he, I can’t make comment on that directly. Again, that’s part of the investigation."Responding to questions about whether the gunman stopped to eat before opening fire, Chief Allen said: "That’s what we suspect he did right now."Before the slaughter, the gunman allegedly cased the store without his weapons while looking for Mexicans to kill, a source said. Following his arrest, Crusius allegedly told police he set out to kill as many Mexicans as he could at the store about five miles from the US-Mexico border, the report added. Up to 3,000 people were at the shopping centre at the time. The gunman fired indiscriminately at victims outside the store before going inside and gunning down more victims, according to police.
The death toll increased to 22 on Monday as grief-stricken families paid tribute to the victims, including several who heroically died while trying to shield or save others. Dozens of others were injured.US President Donald Trump plans to visit the city on Wednesday. He also plans to visit Dayton, Ohio, where nine people were gunned down in a mass shooting just 13 hours after the El Paso rampage. Police in El Paso said the suspect, armed with an assault rifle and wearing headphones or ear protection, surrendered to officers who confronted him outside the store. It is believed he used a WASR-10 rifle, a variant of the AK-47. A racist manifesto allegedly posted on 8chan, an online message board often used by far-right extremists, called the Walmart attack "a response to the Hispanic invasion of Texas".It also expressed for support for the gunman who killed 51 people at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, in March. Eight of those killed in the attack were Mexican citizens, according to the Mexican government. Crusius, a student at Collin College, had lived with his grandparents in Allen until six weeks before the massacre. Saturday's shooting happened a week after three people were killed in a mass shooting at a food festival in Gilroy, California, and just 13 hours before a gunman killed nine people in a busy bar district in Dayton, Ohio. The atrocities have touched off a new furore over gun violence in the United States.