#el paso walmart shooting

[dontmean2bepoliticalbut]

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

Police in El Paso, Texas, say a second person has been taken into custody following a shooting at a shopping mall Wednesday that left one person dead and three other people wounded.

Interim police chief Peter Pacillas said that Cielo Vista Mall was still considered a crime scene, and that it would remain locked down until authorities had completed their investigation.

Pacillas stressed that the danger had passed.

“There is no more danger. I want to repeat that: There is no more danger to the public,” Pacillas said.

The two people in custody and as well as the victims are males, Pacillas said. THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE.

AP’s earlier story follows below. EL PASO, Texas (AP) — Police in El Paso, Texas, say one person was killed and three other people were wounded in a shooting Wednesday in a shopping mall.

One person has been taken into custody, El Paso police spokesperson Sgt. Robert Gomez said. No immediate information was given about that person.

Police were looking for another person who could have been involved, Gomez said. No description was given.

A weapon was recovered at the scene, Gomez said, but he could not provide more information about that.

“It’s too early to speculate on motive,” he said.

The three who were wounded were taken to local hospitals, Gomez said.

University Medical Center in El Paso said in a statement that two male gunshot victims were being treated there. They were in critical condition. The condition of the third victim was not immediately known.

Gomez said police believe the scene is secure and that officers are sweeping through the whole mall to verify that.

“This is a large scene,” Gomez said. “It’s going to take some time to clear the mall.”

Authorities have set up a reunification center at a nearby high school.

Police earlier said the shooting was reported at the shopping mall’s food court.

Wednesday’s shooting at the Cielo Vista Mall happened in a busy shopping area and across a large parking lot from a Walmart where 23 people were killed in a racist attack in 2019.

The United States has seen dozens of people killed in mass shootings so far in 2023, most recently Monday at Michigan State University, where three students were killed and five more were wounded. In January, 11 people were killed in the Los Angeles-area city of Monterey Park as they welcomed the Lunar New Year at a dance hall popular with older Asian Americans.

In 2022, more than 600 mass shootings occurred in the U.S. in which at least four people were killed or wounded, according to the Gun Violence Archive.

[memenewsdotcom]

El Paso Walmart shooter sentenced

[news4dzhozhar]

White supremacist to spend rest of life in prison for 2019 Walmart mass shooting

**So, he killed 23 people based on their race and while labeled a white supremacist that committed a mass murder hate crime, he managed to avoid getting the death penalty. You can't tell me it's not because he's white & his victims weren't. A blatant double standard. If he were Muslim he'd have gotten the DP so fast it would make your head spin.**

“What happened was a cold, calculated scheme targeting immigrants and Hispanics,” Hanna said. “A shooting spree that spared no one. It was not a crime of passion. It was not an accident. It was a calculated act that he planned."

The gunman drove 700 miles from Allen, Texas, to El Paso on the morning of Aug. 3, 2019, and parked in front of the El Paso Walmart at 7101 Gateway Blvd. West, near Cielo Vista Mall.

He then exited his vehicle carrying a GP WASR-10 semiautomatic rifle — a Romanian-made firearm variant of the AK-47 assault rifle — loaded with 7.62 x 39 mm hollow-point ammunition, court documents state.

He began gunning down innocent people in the parking lot before moving into the store and killing and wounding dozens more who were in the aisles and a bank inside the large store. The death toll rose to 23 people in the days and weeks following the shooting.

He confessed to law enforcement that he was targeting Hispanics to dissuade Mexicans and other Hispanics from coming to the United States.

The white supremacist claimed the motive behind the shooting was because "they (Mexicans and other Hispanics) were to blame" and "he was trying to defend his country," federal prosecutors said.

Minutes before the shooting, he posted a racist diatribe online outlining his hatred for Hispanics and his motive for committing one of the deadliest shootings in U.S. history.

The charges were 23 counts of hate crimes resulting in death, 23 counts of use of a firearm to commit murder during and in relation to a crime of violence, 22 counts of hate crimes involving an attempt to kill, and 22 counts of use of a firearm during and in relation to a crime of violence.

[tenth-sentence]

A few months after the Poway attack, 21-year-old Patrick Crusius carried out a shooting in a Walmart store in El Paso, Texas, killing twenty-two people.

"Going Dark: The Secret Social Lives of Extremists" - Julia Ebner

[whenweallvote]

On August 3, 2019, an armed white supremacist drove for nearly 10 hours to a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, where he killed 23 people and injured dozens more. The FBI classified this attack on the Latino community as a hate crime and an act of domestic terrorism.

Five years later, communities across the country continue to experience these tragedies. In 2024, there have been more mass shootings than days of the year so far. Our hearts are with the entire community and everyone impacted by gun violence.

Gun violence prevention is on the ballot this November, and our vote is our voice. Register to vote today at weall.vote/register. 🙏🏽

[mariacallous]

The Islamic State’s recent return to prominence with its bloody attack on a Moscow concert venue overshadowed a solemn and tragic anniversary of a different kind of terrorism. Five years ago in March, a white supremacist named Brenton Tarrant carried out twin shooting attacks against two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand. Fifty-one people were killed, all of whom were Muslim.

Until then the conventional wisdom was that Islamist terrorist groups like al Qaeda and ISIS posed the only serious terrorist threat to Western countries, with Christian white supremacists rarely mentioned. This assumption was shattered with the Christchurch attack, which would become the defining exemplar of modern far-right terrorism—and a precursor of more tragedies to come. At a moment when attention is again focused on the threat from the Islamic State, it is important to remember that other terrorist threats exist and can have equally lethal consequences. The violent, almost viral momentum of such attacks inspire copycats and require an holistic appraisal to effectively and sufficiently counter them.

It took only weeks for other violent far-right extremists to emulate Tarrant’s target and tactics. On March 24, an arson attack on an Escondido, California mosque was perpetrated by a white supremacist who spraypainted “For Brenton Tarrant -t. /pol/” on the pavement, an obscure reference to the 8chan imageboard that both terrorists frequented. A month later, that same person, John Earnest, walked into a Jewish synagogue in nearby Poway and opened fire, murdering one person. “Tarrant was a catalyst for me personally,” he wrote in his manifesto, which itself copied another of Tarrant’s tactics.

10,000 miles away and five months later, Philip Manshaus, a 21-year-old Norwegian neo-Nazi, was clearly and directly inspired by Tarrant in his targeting choice, communications efforts, and sanctification of his terrorist predecessors when he murdered his Asian-origin stepsister as she slept, before proceeding to the Al-Noor Islamic Centre in Bærum, a posh suburb of Oslo with a GoPro attached to his helmet. (Manshaus was quickly subdued by elderly worshippers.)

Tarrant’s influence can also be seen in the shooting at an El Paso Walmart, perpetrated by Patrick Crusius, a white supremacist who killed 23 Latinos in August 2019. (Crusius opened his manifesto by referencing Tarrant.) And, Payton Gendron, who killed 10 Black Americans at a Tops Friendly Market in Buffalo in May 2022, plagiarized large sections of the New Zealand shooter’s manifesto in his own screed.

With his own violent act, Tarrant was following the model arguably advanced by Anders Breivik eight years earlier. In July 2011, Breivik murdered 77 persons in twin attacks. Tarrant himself was actually inspired by events in the United States. While dismissing Donald Trump as a politician, he nonetheless praised the then-serving president “as a symbol of renewed white identity.” Notably, Tarrant also weaponized strategies of leaderless resistance and accelerationism, which respectively advocate for lone acts of violence designed to spread violence and disorder leading to the collapse of elected government; both of these can be traced to the American neo-Nazi movement of the late-1970s and early 1980s.

More than anything, then, the Christchurch shooting was indicative of the increasing internationalization of domestic, far-right terrorism. The potential for its continuation and expansion should be a matter of greater international concern. A more coordinated and systematic transnational response, focusing on better countering social media radicalization and increased multi-lateral law enforcement coordination and intelligence sharing, is key to containing this threat.

The ideology of Tarrant’s manifesto, titled “The Great Replacement,” can be traced back at least as far as the Reconstruction era after the U.S. civil war. The name refers to a conspiratorial rant which claims that Jews and Marxists in the West are deliberately replacing Western white communities by encouraging and facilitating mass immigration in previously homogeneous polities. Today, this dangerous and virulent ideology poses a particular challenge when it is weaponized by politicians and media figures.

What is also noteworthy about the Tarrant model, and is in fact more easily achieved today, is lone actor violence using firearms. In the United States, where the lack of gun control laws significantly enhances terrorist capability, such attacks are particularly effective at totally destabilizing communities, entrenching a deep sense of perennial danger. Precisely this point was made by the European white supremacist who attacked a gay bar in Bratislava in October 2022. His manifesto praised the Buffalo shooter for successfully damaging the cohesiveness of the community in which he acted.

It is the nature of these “extremely online” terrorist attacks that details are often hidden from public view for years after. Only this February, for instance, have researchers in New Zealand revealed previously unknown online posts that actually undermined much of what Tarrant would eventually declare in his manifesto, suggesting he in fact began dreaming of his violent act long before he claimed. Not only do his earlier posts suggest law enforcement and intelligence agencies may have missed an opportunity to intervene in this budding terrorist’s trajectory, they also reveal specific details about his tactics and targeting, which followed those of Dylann Roof, the gunman who in 2015 attacked a place of worship in Charleston, SC. The findings underscore the continuing centrality of social media for modern terrorism and counterterrorism—and the importance of tackling social media radicalization head on.

The New Zealand government has led the charge in holding social media companies accountable for wanton radicalization on their platforms. Former Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern founded the Christchurch Call, which has worked with social media companies to better address harmful content on their platforms through countermeasures including content moderation and algorithmic reform. A suite of gun control measures, meanwhile, included buy backs and bans on high-capacity magazines, with the initial bill passing the parliament 119-1. New Zealand also took symbolic steps to counter the ideology that inspired the killing. The Christchurch Commission Report, when it was released in late 2020, was titled Ko tō tātou kāinga tēnei—Maori for “This is our home”—a resolute statement of unity and openness across race, religion, and language.

Despite the initial failure to stop Tarrant’s attack, this sweeping counterterrorism response has successfully derailed various follow-on attacks in New Zealand. Other countries should heed lessons from the Christchurch tragedy and New Zealand’s holistic policy responses. Namely, a focus on three dimensions of effective counter terrorism: combatting online extremism; escalating countering violent extremism programming; and, most importantly, building an international coalition, especially among those democracies most often targeted with this violence, to ensure a united front in countering domestic threats. Though these are aimed at individual democratic countries, they often have a dangerous transnational dimension and intention.

Firstly, the imperative to counter the free rein of extremism on social media has never been more critical. Today, extremists proliferate freely online, as social media titans, most notably Elon Musk’s X, dilute their online harms departments. European countries and institutions have been aggressive in pushing back, with the European Union for instance, implementing the Digital Services Act, forcing large social companies to better police their platforms or risk major fines. Last fall the United Kingdom enacted the Online Safety Act that gives government with parliamentary approval the power to suppress a range of online content.

The First Amendment of the United States Constitution makes the adoption of similarly far-reaching measures to curb digital content more complicated and controversial. However, the United States could take signal action by reforming Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act. This law, enacted at the dawn of the internet, is an anachronism in an era where more people get their news online—and especially from social media—than from traditional, mainstream news and media sources. Section 230 protects internet and social media platforms from being held liable for content they publish. Removing that protection would likely force social media platforms to more actively monitor and remove dangerous content, including not just extremism but a range of other online harms, such as child sexual abuse material—much like the UK’s Online Safety Act.

Secondly, the United States in concert with other countries should considerably ramp up and improve their own respective domestic programming on countering violent extremism (CVE), focused on addressing vulnerabilities to extremism and radicalization, including mental illness and histories of isolation. Across the board, far-right terrorists are getting younger (some arrests now involve individuals as young as 13), and although Tarrant is a relative exception, his case exhibited the same instances of bullying and family trauma that often accompany extremism today. CVE, however, remains a mostly localized and uncoordinated cottage industry both nationally and especially transnationally of social workers, psychologists, former extremists, and welldoers—professionals doing important work, but often lacking direction, funding, and scale. The German-Swedish EXIT program provides one model of a framework for counter- and de-radicalization programming that might be replicated.

Our final recommendation is an ambitious one: as the international community is increasingly challenged by these ideologies and the violence they inspire, it should create a more formal multi-lateral framework to coordinate responses to these trans-national manifestations of domestic political violence. First, and most importantly, more organized cooperation than currently exists would better enable the exchange of best practices. Second, enhanced intelligence sharing about transnational terrorist networks and violent individuals communicating internationally would enable more effective disruption of cross-border terrorist financing. Finally, the sum total of improved cooperation would appreciably advance the core democratic values and traditions the countries most afflicted by this violence share, including trust in electoral systems and better countering the conspiracy theories that threaten undermine them. Such a working group might emerge from pre-existing alliances such as the Five Eyes partnership already linking intelligence sharing between the United States and New Zealand as well as Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom. In this way likeminded countries with shared values can cooperate in undermining a pervasive threat that now threatens national security across the Western world.

[ausetkmt]

WASHINGTON (AP) — The social media posts are of a distinct type. They hint darkly that the CIA or the FBI are behind mass shootings. They traffic in racist, sexist and homophobic tropes. They revel in the prospect of a “white boy summer.”

White nationalists and supremacists, on accounts often run by young men, are building thriving, macho communities across social media platforms like Instagram, Telegram and TikTok, evading detection with coded hashtags and innuendo.

Their snarky memes and trendy videos are riling up thousands of followers on divisive issues including abortion, guns, immigration and LGBTQ rights. The Department of Homeland Security warned Tuesday that such skewed framing of the subjects could drive extremists to violently attack public places across the U.S. in the coming months.

These type of threats and racist ideology have become so commonplace on social media that it’s nearly impossible for law enforcement to separate internet ramblings from dangerous, potentially violent people, Michael German, who infiltrated white supremacy groups as an FBI agent, told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday.

“It seems intuitive that effective social media monitoring might provide clues to help law enforcement prevent attacks,” German said. “After all, the white supremacist attackers in Buffalo, Pittsburgh and El Paso all gained access to materials online and expressed their hateful, violent intentions on social media.”

But, he continued, “so many false alarms drown out threats.”

DHS and the FBI are also working with state and local agencies to raise awareness about the increased threat around the U.S. in the coming months.

The heightened concern comes just weeks after a white 18-year-old entered a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, with the goal of killing as many Black patrons as possible. He gunned down 10.

WATCH: Senate Homeland Security committee holds hearing on white supremacist violence

That shooter claims to have been introduced to neo-Nazi websites and a livestream of the 2019 Christchurch, New Zealand mosque shootings on the anonymous, online messaging board 4Chan. In 2018, the white man who gunned down 11 at a Pittsburgh synagogue shared his antisemitic rants on Gab, a site that attracts extremists. The year before, a 21-year-old white man who killed 23 people at a Walmart in the largely Hispanic city of El Paso, Texas, shared his anti-immigrant hate on the messaging board 8Chan.

References to hate-filled ideologies are more elusive across mainstream platforms like Twitter, Instagram, TikTok and Telegram. To avoid detection from artificial intelligence-powered moderation, users don’t use obvious terms like “white genocide” or “white power” in conversation.

They signal their beliefs in other ways: a Christian cross emoji in their profile or words like “anglo” or “pilled,” a term embraced by far-right chatrooms, in usernames. Most recently, some of these accounts have borrowed the pop song “White Boy Summer” to cheer on the leaked Supreme Court draft opinion on Roe v. Wade, according to an analysis by Zignal Labs, a social media intelligence firm.

Facebook and Instagram owner Meta banned praise and support for white nationalist and separatists movements in 2019 on company platforms, but the social media shift to subtlety makes it difficult to moderate the posts. Meta says it has more than 350 experts, with backgrounds from national security to radicalization research, dedicated to ridding the site of such hateful speech.

“We know these groups are determined to find new ways to try to evade our policies, and that’s why we invest in people and technology and work with outside experts to constantly update and improve our enforcement efforts,” David Tessler, the head of dangerous organizations and individuals policy for Meta, said in a statement.

A closer look reveals hundreds of posts steeped in sexist, antisemitic, racist and homophobic content.

In one Instagram post identified by The Associated Press, an account called White Primacy appeared to post a photo of a billboard that describes a common way Jewish people were exterminated during the Holocaust.

“We’re just 75 years since the gas chambers. So no, a billboard calling out bigotry against Jews isn’t an overreaction,” the pictured billboard said.

The caption of the post, however, denied gas chambers were used at all. The post’s comments were even worse: “If what they said really happened, we’d be in such a better place,” one user commented. “We’re going to finish what they started someday,” another wrote.

The account, which had more than 4,000 followers, was immediately removed Tuesday, after the AP asked Meta about it. Meta has banned posts that deny the Holocaust on its platform since 2020.

U.S. extremists are mimicking the social media strategy used by the Islamic State group, which turned to subtle language and images across Telegram, Facebook and YouTube a decade ago to evade the industry-wide crackdown of the terrorist group’s online presence, said Mia Bloom, a communications professor at Georgia State University.

“They’re trying to recruit,” said Bloom, who has researched social media use for both Islamic State terrorists and far-right extremists. “We’re starting to see some of the same patterns with ISIS and the far-right. The coded speech, the ways to evade AI. The groups were appealing to a younger and younger crowd.”

For example, on Instagram, one of the most popular apps for teens and young adults, white supremacists amplify each other’s content daily and point their followers to new accounts.

In recent weeks, a cluster of those accounts has turned its sights on Pride Month, with some calling for gay marriage to be “re-criminalized” and others using the #Pride or rainbow flag emoji to post homophobic memes.

Law enforcement agencies are already monitoring an active threat from a young Arizona man who says on his Telegram accounts that he is “leading the war” against retail giant Target for its Pride Month merchandise and children’s clothing line and has promised to “hunt LGBT supporters” at the stores. In videos posted to his Telegram and YouTube accounts, sometimes filmed at Target stores, he encourages others to go the stores as well.

Target said in a statement that it is working with local and national law enforcement agencies who are investigating the videos. As society becomes more accepting of LGBTQ rights, the issue may be especially triggering for young men who have held traditional beliefs around relationships and marriage, Bloom said.

“That might explain the vulnerability to radical belief systems: A lot of the beliefs that they grew up with, that they held rather firmly, are being shaken,” she said. “That’s where it becomes an opportunity for these groups: They’re lashing out and they’re picking on things that are very different.”

[krabmeat]

i dont know whats gotten into me, but i cant help but feel mad. mad that i have to keep preaching my OWN struggles.

and i know too fucking well that if you arent mexican- if you arent at the VERY LEAST latino- this shit is gonna fall on deaf ears

no one understands the loss of spanish speaking parents teaching their children english first so that they dont get discriminated against for a thick accent until you experience it

no one understands the amount of praying parents do secretly, praying that their young childs skin will pale by the time theyre old enough to get a job until you experience it

no one understands the embarassment of not knowing spanish fluently (because your parents didnt want people to dog on you for your accent) and being shamed for not being able to speak perfect spanish for your not mexican peers that say "oh so youre mexican, say something in spanish, then" until you experience it

no one understands the rage of finally learning about the mexican american war and manifest destiny- listening to the obnoxious american pride of texas, california, utah, and nevada as they step on my ancestors like stools and ignore their stolen land until you experience it

no one understands the betrayal of the forgotten 597 mexicans that were lynched between 1848 and 1949 whos identities were labeled as white instead of mexican until you experience it

no one understands the erasure of the mass shooting that occured in El Paso, Texas on august 3rd in front of a walmart where Patrick Crusius murdered 18 Hispanic Americans and told the police that he was trying to kill as many mexicans as possible until you experience it

no one understands the heartbreak of the murder of Luis Ramirez in July of 2008 when a group of white boys beat Luis Ramirez to death on his way home until you experience it

all i am asking- ALL I AM ASKING- is to let us be heard.

please reblog.

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

It took 1,285 days, but victims, their families and the Borderland community finally received some justice as the gunman who killed 23 people during a mass shooting at an El Paso Walmart pleaded guilty.

Patrick Crusius, 24, pleaded guilty Wednesday to 90 charges in connection with the Aug. 3, 2019, mass shooting. The charges included 23 counts of hate crimes resulting in death, 23 counts of use of a firearm to commit murder during and in relation to a crime of violence, 22 counts of hate crimes involving an attempt to kill, and 22 counts of use of a firearm during and in relation to a crime of violence.

“Today’s guilty plea marks one more step towards justice for the El Paso community; however, we must remember that the survivors and victims’ families will be on a lifelong journey of healing because of this defendant’s actions,” FBI Director Christopher Wray said in a statement. “We extend our heartfelt sympathy to the Hispanic community who had their sense of security shattered by this heinous attack. The FBI will continue to seek justice for all those whose civil rights and safety are threatened by hate.”

The prosecutors recommended that he receive 90 consecutive life sentences. The Judge will consider sentencing in June. The Judge read each count, which included naming the 23 victims' names. Those killed and wounded were from the U.S. and Mexico.

The shooter showed no emotion. Federal prosecutor Ian Martinez Hanna was visibly shaken and holding back emotions as he described the shooter's actions on the morning of the attack. The shooter nodded his head affirmatively as Hanna described how the defendant killed nearly two dozen people.

Hanna detailed the timeline of events starting with the shooter driving to El Paso and parking in the Walmart parking lot. The shooter then got out of his vehicle and began shooting people in the parking lot, Hanna said. He then continued into Walmart, where he fatally shot nine people in a bank inside the store. He then continue shooting another nine in the aisles of the store. Crusius then left the store and minutes later surrendered to law enforcement.

Hanna said during the hearing that the shooter admitted to being a white supremacist. He also told investigators he was motivated to commit the shooting after reading "The Great Replacement," which is a white nationalist conspiracy theory. The gunman said he committed the mass shooting in an effort to dissuade Mexicans and other Hispanics from coming to the U.S., Hanna said. The shooter said "they (Mexicans and other Hispanics) were to blame" and "he was trying to defend his country," Hanna said.

The shooter said he came to El Paso because the border city was far from where his family lives in Allen, Texas, Hanna said during the hearing. The El Paso Walmart was selected because the shooter believed people of Mexican or Hispanic country origins would be at the store, Hanna said.

Former El Paso Mayor Dee Margo, who attended the hearing, said it was a gut-wrenching day and called the shooter an "evil white supremacist." Margo added he hopes state prosecutors will continue to seek the death penalty against the shooter. "It was tough," Margo said. "I wish we had the death penalty. It should have happened two years ago at a minimum."

The shooter was wearing a blue jail jumpsuit, a face covering and was handcuffed in front tied to a metal chain around his waist. He wore glasses and his brown hair was longer and unkempt. Face coverings were mandatory in the courtroom.

The hearing took place under unprecedented security with U.S. Marshals in black jackets stationed along hallways and men with dogs roving the courthouse grounds outside. Two U.S. Marshals stood behind the defendant as he sat at a table with his attorneys.

Those in attendance include family members of victims and Margo, who was mayor when the mass shooting occurred in 2019. A crowd of 40 victims or family members of those who died in the shooting sat in the Albert Armendariz Sr. Federal Courthouse's largest courtroom. Those who could not get a seat in the packed courtroom, which seats about 100 people, viewed the proceedings on television screens in an overflow room. The court in Downtown El Paso has been the site to some of the biggest trials in El Paso history, including proceedings against notorious drug cartel members.

The shooter's guilty plea was accepted by U.S. District Court Judge David C. Guaderrama. Defense attorney Joe Spencer said that his client had wanted to take responsibility for the massacre since Aug. 3, 2019.

"We're glad that it's finally done," Spencer said. "And he's glad that it is finally done. There are no winners in this case. He's going to be serving 90 consecutive life sentences..."

Spencer declined to comment further citing a gag order connected to the state district court case against the shooter. The gag order issued prevents defense lawyers, prosecutors, witnesses, victims and family members from discussing the case. No cameras or cellphones were allowed into the courtroom. He faces life in prison after federal prosecutors decided against seeking the death penalty.

“It has always been our intent to obtain proper justice for all the victims of the senseless El Paso shooting, their ever-resilient families, and the courageous community that continues to feel the pain of that day,” Western District of Texas First Assistant U.S. Attorney Margaret Leachman said in a statement. “We continue to stand in support of all whose lives have been impacted, and my hope is that this plea leads to a sentence that can serve as an example of how the United States justice system does not tolerate anyone who chooses to harm our loved ones and our neighbors, especially when motivated by hatred.”

Federal officials held the plea agreement as a step in combating white supremacy and hate crimes.

“White nationalist-fueled violence has no place in our society today,” U.S. Justice Department's Civil Rights Division Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke said in a statement. “This senseless massacre violates the law, runs contrary to our values as Americans and defies the principles of tolerance and inclusion that define us as a nation. By pleading guilty, the defendant has admitted that he murdered innocent people based on their national origin and targeted Hispanics."

U.S. Attorney General Merrick B. Garland added, “Nothing can undo the immeasurable loss suffered by the loved ones of the victims of that attack or the terror inflicted on the El Paso community in its wake. Today’s action makes clear that the Justice Department will not tolerate hate-fueled violence that endangers the safety of our communities.”

While the federal case is moving on to the next stage, state proceedings against the shooter are pending. A trial date has not been set and no hearings are scheduled, according to court records. In state court, he faces one count of capital murder of multiple persons and 22 counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. The El Paso County District Attorney’s Office is seeking the death penalty.

WALMART SHOOTING WAS A DAY THAT ROCKED EL PASO, JUÁREZ AND THE NATION

His plea comes three years, six months and five days after he drove from Allen, Texas, a Dallas suburb, on Aug. 3, 2019, to El Paso with a variant of an AK-47 assault rifle and hundreds of rounds of ammunition, according to the federal indictment.

Records show he uploaded a racist tirade online before he began his shooting spree. He claimed in the online tirade that his attack was “a response to the Hispanic invasion of Texas."

The devastating early Saturday morning shooting spree began in the parking lot of the East El Paso Walmart near Cielo Vista Mall. He then is accused of entering the store and continuing to gun down people, many of whom were shopping with their families.

Dig Deeper — As El Paso struggles to heal, Walmart shooter's rhetoric builds in GOP

The mass shooting left 23 people dead and dozens more injured. It is one of the deadliest mass shootings in U.S. history. Shortly after the shooting, the shooter surrendered to law enforcement.

Since the shooting, annual memorials in El Paso have been held to honor the victims, including at Ponder Park, which is just blocks away from the site of the shooting. An area outside the Walmart where the shooting took place is now home to the "Grand Candela" memorial that honors the victims. A healing garden also was built to honor those killed. The El Paso Community Healing Garden National Memorial is at Ascarate Park in South-Central El Paso.

[memenewsdotcom]

El Paso mall shooting

[beardedmrbean]

Sept. 25 (UPI) -- The man convicted in a mass shooting that killed 23 people and injured 22 at an El Paso Walmart on Aug. 3, 2019, has agreed to pay $5.56 million in restitution to the families, according to court documents filed Monday.

Patrick Wood Crusius, 25, agreed to the restitution in a joint motion approved by U.S. District Judge David Guaderrama.

The motion ends the federal case against Crusius. He pleaded guilty in February to 90 federal charges, including hate crimes, and was sentenced in July to 90 life terms. He still faces a trial in Texas state court on charges including capital murder. He could face the death sentence if convicted in that case.

It is unlikely Crusius, who is relying on public defenders, has the assets to pay the restitution, the El Paso Times reported.

The gunman traveled hundreds of miles from Allen, Texas, to El Paso to carry out the attack, targeting Hispanic immigrants, prosecutors said. He referred to himself as a White nationalist and posted on social medial about a "Hispanic invasion of Texas" before the attack.

He arrived at the Walmart armed with an assault-style rifle and hundreds of rounds of ammunition.

After his arrest, Crusius told investigators he targeted his victims because they were Hispanic and that he intended to kill everyone he shot.

[stele3]

[cyarskaren52]

When the shooting happened here in El Paso. Walmart added a security guard and a police officer in stores.

At least the one's by my house.

They're there every day.

It can be done.

Target is saying "fuck you" to the LGBTQ+ community.

And "I got Ya" to the WS.

No biiiiitch fuck you target until it’s backwards

And you might think it's different but if they're worried about someone getting hurt or killed there are ways to protect the workers and shoppers.

Now they're going to think they can make all kinds of demands.