The man who shot 20 people in the El Paso shopping center
The suspect who yesterday opened fire in El Paso, Texas, on visitors to a shopping center, with 20 dead and 26 injured, is 21-year-old Patrick Crusius from Allen, near Dallas. According to what the state’s attorney’s office confirmed. The United States Federal Police Department considers the shooting in the city of El Paso to be a terrorist attack and hate crime.
Allen, a suburb of Dallas and the last known hometown of Crusius, is located about 1,000 kilometers east of El Paso. According to public documents, the suspect would live there with his parents and also have a twin sister and older brother. The man’s family has not yet responded to the shooting.
A journalist from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reports on Twitter that agents from the FBI and ATF (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives) are conducting searches and interviewing people who may be related to Crusius.
Crusius graduated from Plano Senior high school in Allen in 2017 and attended Collin College, a college in McKinney, north of Dallas, from fall 2017 to spring 2019. The school has since confirmed that it is a former student.
Loner
A source within the police told CBS News that the suspect was considered “young person with problems”.
Leigh Ann Locascio, a former neighbor, calls Crusius “a true loner,” who was always alone on the bus in high school. According to her, he spoke negatively about other children who did sports or were members of the school band. He was “very distant” and someone who “had little contact with others.”
Her son Tony Locascio regularly went to school with Patrick Crusius and his sister. According to the young man, Patrick Crusius always walked in front of or behind them, and he was always very independent. He loved animals and kept snakes as pets, says Locascio. “He didn’t speak to anyone. Nobody really knew him.”
AK47
A Twitter account, meanwhile deleted, under Crusius’ name liked a photo on which the name ‘Trump’ was spelled with firearms.
According to the first reports, the suspect would have opened fire with an automatic assault rifle of the AK47 type and would have shot around for 20 minutes. According to the police, he did not resist during his arrest. The authorities have not yet confirmed which weapon he used.
Manifesto
The authorities are investigating a hate manifesto from Crusius that was posted on the internet forum 8chan for the shooting. The authenticity of the document has yet to be confirmed. It was online for almost twenty minutes before the police received a phone call about the shooting, writes The New York Times.
In the four-page document entitled “The Inconvenient Truth”, the author explains why he is against racial mixing. He wants to “send foreigners back” and predicts that genocide is coming. Latinos are responsible for the “decay of America,” he says. His attack is “a reaction to the Latin American invasion of Texas”.
Crusius criticizes the mismanagement of both Democrats and Republicans. The latter are mainly guilty because they let large corporations go their way in the US because they are pro-immigration and act at the expense of the environment and the working population. The Democrats are unanimous in favor of immigration, which means that the country will soon become a “one-party state,” he says. Moreover, with increasing automation, there will be too few jobs to keep the white population and immigrants working.
Christchurch massacre
Crusius also indicates that he was inspired by the shooter who opened fire in New Zealand in March on visitors to a mosque and shot 51 people. He says he turned against Latinos after reading “The Great Replacement,” a white-nationalist conspiracy theory.
According to the manifesto, Crusius assumed that he would be killed by the police or the “intruders,” as he called the Hispanics. Three Mexicans were killed in the shooting. In the manifesto, the shooter also explains which weapon he will use.
Domestic terrorism
According to The Times, domestic terrorism aimed primarily at Muslims and minorities is a growing problem in the United States. This year the FBI expects to arrest much more domestic terrorists than foreign ones.
In recent years, domestic terrorism has claimed more casualties than foreign terrorism.
LinkedIn profile
A profile that has since been deleted on LinkedIn in the name of Patrick Crusius suggests little ambition. “I’m not really motivated to do anything more than what’s necessary to get by. Working in generally sucks, but I guess a career in Software Development suits me. I spend around 8 hours on the computer every day so that counts towards technology experience I guess.” He really wasn’t going to look for a job. “Pretty much just gonna see what technology career present themselves to me.; go with the wind.”
