The El Paso mass shooting victim who was arrested by the Secret Service on an outstanding warrant at the White House blamed a vetting failure that occurred after a snap decision by President Trump to invite him and others to an award ceremony.
Chris Grant, 51, who was shot twice during a massacre at an El Paso Walmart that killed 22 on Aug. 3, said in a hospital bed interview days after the attack that he threw soda bottles at the Walmart shooter to distract him from firing at others, earning him praise from Trump and an invitation to the White House.
But El Paso police disputed Grant’s account, telling the Washington Examiner that video evidence did not support his story. Grant came under additional scrutiny when he was arrested at the White House by the Secret Service before the award ceremony due to an outstanding warrant for evading arrest in Collin County, Texas.
Grant’s spokeswoman, Rosana Narvaez, told the Washington Examiner the White House had badgered her client to attend the ceremony — while he was still recovering from gunshots to his kidney and ribs — and then failed to vet him before he arrived in Washington, D.C., for the event.
“He didn’t have much interest in going to the White House,” said Narvaez. “They hunted him down like a dog to give him a certificate when he was in the sanctity of his hospital bed … it wasn’t like he put his name in a hat.
“Everyone was cleared in advance except for him, for some reason,” she said. “He took his kids, he took his 83-year-old mom, he thought it would be a nice thing.”
The event was reportedly arranged hastily. Another El Paso victim and honoree, Glendon Oakley Jr., was unable to attend because he did not receive an invitation in time to plan a trip, according to Bloomberg. The El Paso police chief reportedly skipped the ceremony because rank-and-file officers were not invited and did not receive awards.
Trump often impulsively arranges events that previous White Houses took weeks or months to organize. The Washington Nationals won the World Series on Oct. 30 and were gathering with Trump at the White House five days later. Under previous administrations, the celebration might not have occurred until the next spring.
Grant had earlier been cleared to meet with Texas Gov. Greg Abbott without issue, leading him to think there would be no problem with meeting with Trump.
“I was surprised that there was an issue, because I had attended a Round Table [sic] on gun violence a couple weeks prior with Governor Greg Abbott,” Grant told the Washington Examiner in a statement. “I was not aware that I had an outstanding warrant, or that I had not been cleared, until I got there.”
Narvaez said the White House has not rescinded the award, but she said Grant would be happy to return it because he does not view himself as a hero and continues to struggle with survivor’s guilt.
“If the White House says send back the certificate, he has no problem with that,” she said. “He didn’t ask for that. It doesn’t really mean anything to him. He has horrible survivors guilt. He feels that nothing he did was heroic.”
Narvaez said it was also “bad form” for CNN’s Chris Cuomo to interview Grant just two hours after he woke up from a coma in August. In that interview, Grant said he threw bottles at the shooter to distract him from firing at other victims.
“[Grant] wished he hadn’t done the interview obviously because it blew up super ugly,” said Narvaez. “It’s bad form I think to do an interview less than two hours after someone wakes up.”
Grant’s account was disputed by El Paso police in September.
“Nobody bothered to check with us,” El Paso police spokesman Sgt. Enrique Carrillo told the Washington Examiner at the time. “They would have been informed, as I am telling you now, that our detectives reviewed hours of video and his actions did not match his account.”
The police department has declined to provide details about the alleged discrepancies. When asked why it would not comment further, Carrillo told the Washington Examiner that “we’re not going to.”
Narvaez said the discrepancy could be as minor as Grant throwing one bottle rather than multiple ones. She said Grant stands by his story, but he also acknowledged that his memory could have been affected by the trauma of the shooting.
Narvaez said El Paso police are re-victimizing Grant by publicly questioning his account. “I’ve never seen anybody go after the victims like this. The enemy is the shooter. To victimize them twice is not fair,” she said.
She said Grant’s recovery has given him a chance to “reflect on the first 50 years of his life, and it’s cathartic.”
“He was coming out of a dark place for five years,” she said. “He’s going to have an opportunity to make things right and start fresh … he’s grateful.”
