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Shooter in Texas massacre said he was targeting ‘Mexicans’
WASHINGTON, Aug 10, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – The 21-year-old Texan who killed 22
people in an El Paso Walmart told police following his arrest that he was
targeting “Mexicans,” according to an arrest warrant published Friday by US
media.
The document charging Patrick Crusius, of Allen, Texas, with murder also
described the circumstances of his arrest, saying he stepped out of his
vehicle when surrounded by police, put his hands up and said “I’m the
shooter.”
At police headquarters, Crusius waived his right to remain silent or have a
lawyer present and told detectives that “his target (was) ‘Mexicans,'”
according to the document, obtained by The Washington Post and others.
Prior to carrying out the attack Saturday, Crusius published a white
supremacist manifesto online which expressed fears of a “Hispanic invasion”
of Texas.
Eight of the people killed in the rampage were Mexican nationals and many
of the other victims were Americans of Hispanic origin.
In the manifesto, Crusius claimed he was “defending” the United States
“from cultural and ethnic replacement brought on by an invasion” and made
references to the Christchurch shootings in New Zealand, where a white gunman
killed 51 worshippers at two mosques in March.
El Paso is about a nine-hour drive from Allen, where Crusius lived, and he
apparently deliberately selected the city because of its heavily Hispanic
population.
El Paso lies on the Rio Grande River which marks the US border with Mexico.
It has a population of 680,000, of which 83 percent are of Hispanic descent.
BSS/AFP/GMR/0908 hrs