Prosecutors vowed Sunday to hold yesterday’s El Paso mass shooter accountable as a domestic terrorist with state charges that include capital murder, as well as federal hate crimes and firearms charges.
Jaime Esparza, El Paso County’s district attorney, said at today’s press conference that the alleged white supremacist terrorist who killed 20 people at an El Paso Walmart on Saturday would be charged with capital murder and that his crimes would make him eligible for the death penalty, a punishment he made clear they would seek.
Esparza said his office and the El Paso Police Department, the Texas Department of Public Safety, the FBI, and the U.S. Attorney’s Office were all working together on this case, and promised that his office “will proceed in an orderly fashion and we’ll get ready for trial and the prosecution of this person.”
John Bash, the U.S. attorney for the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, stated that he’d been in close consultation with Attorney General William Barr and that the federal government was “conducting a methodical and careful investigation” aimed at bringing significant charges against the shooter, which he said “carry a penalty of death.”
Bash said the Justice Department is treating the El Paso murderers as a domestic terrorism case, believing the crimes meet the statutory definition because the attacks “appear to be designed to intimidate a civilian population, to say the least.” Bash promised the assembled reporters that “we’re gonna do what we do to terrorists in this country, which is deliver swift and certain justice.”
Police believe that Patrick Crusius, 21, is the sole perpetrator of the attack. A racist four-page “manifesto” that Crusius is alleged to have written was posted on 8chan prior to the shooting, though investigators have not yet publicly confirmed that he wrote it. The document says that Crusius wanted to stop the “Hispanic invasion of Texas” and that he drew inspiration from the March mass shootings at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, which killed 51 and injured 49.
FBI Director Christopher Wray has repeatedly warned about white supremacist violence, telling Congress earlier this year that the danger posed by it is “significant” and that the FBI assesses that it is a “persistent, pervasive threat.”
Emmerson Buie, the special agent in charge of the FBI’s El Paso Division, said the FBI was continuing to look at different potential crimes to be charged, including “potentially civil rights hate crime along with any potential domestic terrorism charges.” Buie said the FBI initiated its Domestic Terrorism-Hate Crimes Fusion Cell, which he said is “comprised of agents and intelligence analysts from the field office as well as other places in the United States and at our headquarters level.” Buie said that both investigative and counterterrorism experts would look at all the evidence and would ensure that everything was being shared properly between federal, state, and local investigators. Buie also revealed that the FBI had executed three search warrants in Dallas, where the shooter lived, and that the FBI will “continue to look at all avenues and leads as they are coming in.”
Regarding whether hate crimes were being considered, El Paso Police Chief Greg Allen said that the shooter’s manifesto was still being investigated, but that “it’s beginning to look more solidly like that’s the case.” Allen also said that the shooter was cooperating with investigators and that “he was forthcoming with information and he didn’t hold anything back.” Allen also said that the shooter’s mugshot will be released later today and that the bodies of the victims were being removed from the scene of the crime.
Esparaza stressed the scope of the tragedy and said “the loss of life is so great” and that “we have certainly never seen this in our community.” Esparaza said El Paso prides itself on being a safe and loving city and said everyone there “is rocked and shocked and saddened.”
Bash said his grandmother had lived in El Paso for 50 years and noted that “I don’t think she’s ever seen ever anything like this in this community.” Bash said his mom grew up in El Paso, his dad went to college there, and he lived there when he was young, and said “it’s been devastating for the community.”
And Dee Margo, El Paso’s mayor, noted that “the outpouring of support that we’ve had from across this nation and across this world has been phenomenal.” Margo said that “El Paso is a resilient city” and that “this will not define us and we will move ahead.”
After Saturday’s mass shooting, which killed 20 people in El Paso, another mass shooting ended the lives of nine people in Dayton, Ohio, in the early hours of Sunday morning, making it one of the deadliest weekends in the history of mass shootings.
