Los Angeles (USA) (EFE).- Patrick Crusius, the confessed author of the 2019 massacre in a supermarket in El Paso (Texas, USA) that caused 23 deaths, was sentenced to 90 consecutive life sentences for that racist attack directed against Hispanics and immigrants.
Last February, Crusius pleaded guilty to 90 federal counts of murder and hate crimes for the shooting at a Walmart store with a predominantly Latino clientele, for which the US government did not ask for the death penalty.
However, Texas prosecutors plan to put him on trial again for the same shooting in a statewide proceeding seeking the death penalty.
Statements from relatives of the deceased and survivors
Since Wednesday, when the sentencing phase of the trial began in federal court in El Paso, Crusius has faced testimony from 36 relatives of the dead and survivors of the massacre about the impact the attack has had on their lives.
A young survivor sobbed that she “used to be a normal, happy teenager, until a coward chose to use violence against innocents.”
A man whose mother died in the shooting asked Crusius if he slept well at night and if he was a white supremacist, to which the now sentenced man shook his head in the negative, but nodded when asked if he regretted what he had done.
On August 3, 2019, Crusius, then 21, opened fire with a semi-automatic rifle at a Walmart store, causing the largest massacre in the US directed against Latinos.
“Hispanic invasion” of the United States
After turning himself in to law enforcement that same day and identifying himself as the perpetrator, Crusius told investigators that he had chosen the Walmart store for his attack because it is close to the border with Mexico and because it is frequented by Hispanic customers, according to trial documents. .
He first visited the store without carrying weapons and returned equipped with ear muffs, plastic eye glasses, and a semi-automatic rifle with which he fired indiscriminately.
He also admitted to posting a manifesto online minutes before the massacre in which he complained of “cultural and ethnic substitution” and a “Hispanic invasion” of the United States.
Despite having avoided the death penalty in the federal trial, Texas prosecutors plan to retry him for the same shooting in a statewide proceeding seeking the death penalty.
Hate conspiracies and lies
“We are still going to prosecute the Walmart shooter. And we will still seek the death penalty,” said El Paso District Attorney Bill Hicks, who nonetheless acknowledged that the jury will decide the fate of the prisoner.
Hicks said he doesn’t know when the state trial will start, but said it will be sometime in 2024 or 2025.
“The mass murder of two dozen people simply because they looked like me or members of my family by a white nationalist will always be one of the darkest days in my city,” said Mario Carrillo, campaign manager for the America’s Voice, an immigrant organization who grew up in El Paso.
He stressed that his outrage is not limited to just the perpetrator, singling out Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, “among many other Republicans,” for spreading “hateful conspiracies and lies.”
“Despite the demonstrated dangers, they have escalated their use of ‘invasion’ and ‘replacement’ (white population) conspiracies over the past four years, apparently not caring that this rhetoric is accompanied by death,” he said.