Yesterday in El Paso, Texas around 11 a.m., a gunman opened fire at a WalMart killing at least 20 people and wounding an additional 26. According to Fox News, “the suspect has not been publicly named, but was identified by two law enforcement officials to the Associated Press as Patrick Crusius, a 21-year-old from Allen, Texas. Investigators were examining a manifesto that may have been written by the suspect and would indicate a ‘nexus to a hate crime.”
So far, the suspect has been charged with capital murder and officials are looking into whether hate crime charges are appropriate. U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Texas told reporters at a press conference that investigators are treating the shooting as a “domestic terrorism case” and are conducting the investigation “with a view towards bringing federal hate crimes charges…and federal firearms charges which carry a penalty of death.”
Shooting suspect Crusius was apprehended at the scene and taken into custody. Authorities are examining what is referred to as a “manifesto” that was published online on the site 8Chan before the shooting began which heavily discussed immigration and is believed to have been written by the assailant. The manifesto said “America is rotting from the inside out, and peaceful means to stop this seem to be nearly impossible. The inconvenient truth is that our leaders, both Democrat AND Republican, have been failing us for decades.”
An absurd suggestion the murderer proposed in his writing was that “the best solution to this for now would be to divide America into a confederacy of territories with at least 1 territory for each race. This physical separation would nearly eliminate race mixing and improve social unity by granting each race self-determination within their respective territory(s).”
Approximately 15 hours after the El Paso shooting as the nation grieved, another mass shooting occurred in a busy, popular nightlife area in Dayton, Ohio around 1:00am this morning. Dayton chief of police identified the gunman as 24-year-old Connor Betts. Betts opened fire outside of a bar killing nine, including his own sister, 22-year-old Megan Betts, and wounding dozens more. The tragedy took place in the city’s Oregon District, and reports suggest that Betts was killed by police in under a minute after he first opened fire with a .223-caliber rifle.
