Shooter who targeted Latinos in Texas Walmart gets 90 life sentences
The self-described white nationalist who killed 23 people at a Texas Walmart in a 2019 attack targeting Latinos was given 90 consecutive life sentences by a federal judge Friday, the Associated Press reported, after two days of emotional courtroom statements from victims and their families.
Patrick Crusius, 24, was sentenced in an El Paso courthouse on federal hate crime charges, to which he pleaded guilty in February.
Crusius killed 23 people and injured 22 others in the Aug. 3, 2019, mass shooting in El Paso, in which he targeted Hispanic people at a Walmart near the U.S.-Mexico border. Authorities later called the attack domestic terrorism, and Attorney General Merrick Garland denounced “hate-fueled violence” in announcing Crusius’s plea deal earlier this year.
Crusius still faces additional state charges in the attack and could face the death penalty if convicted in that case.
Four years after the shooting - the deadliest in the United States since 2017 - this week’s sentencing hearing provided an opportunity for survivors and victims’ families to confront him. For two days, witnesses spoke to Crusius directly, expressing grief, anger and anguish.
It was also a rare chance to see a mass shooter prosecuted in a case with a high victim toll: Of the six deadliest shootings in U.S. history, El Paso is the only one in which the gunman has faced the justice system, rather than dying by suicide or police gunshot on the day of the attack.
Crusius drove to the Walmart from the Dallas area with an AK-47-style rifle and 1,000 rounds of ammunition, according to his indictment. He opened fire outside the store, then continued shooting inside.
After the massacre, Crusius left the store. He stopped at an intersection and surrendered to police officers, getting out of his car and saying, “I’m the shooter.”
The shooting devastated dozens of families in both the United States and Mexico. It happened just hours before a gunman killed nine people and injured others in a mass shooting in Dayton, Ohio, the double tragedies sparking another push among gun-safety activists.
El Paso, which shares the U.S. border with Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, has a population of more than 677,000 and is largely Latino. Evidence quickly emerged that Crusius had been motivated by white supremacist beliefs.
In a hate-filled manifesto posted online before the attack, Crusius said he was “defending my country from cultural and ethnic replacement” that was occurring due to a “Hispanic invasion of Texas” and cited a white supremacist conspiracy theory that White people are being replaced with immigrants. He described himself as a white nationalist in the document.
After being taken into custody, Crusius told police he had been targeting “Mexicans,” authorities reported in case filings. He admitted in this year’s guilty plea proceedings that he targeted the Walmart because he believed Hispanic people would be there and that he wrote the manifesto, the Justice Department said in February.
“Look at me, you coward. Look at my son’s picture,” Francisco Javier Rodriguez said to Crusius in court, ABC 7 KVIA reported. “Because of you he never graduated from high school. I carry my son’s ashes with me everywhere I go.”
“I don’t forgive him. I don’t think he deserves anyone’s forgiveness. I don’t think he deserves anything,” Amaris Vega, the niece of victim Teresa Sanchez, told KFOX14.
“My message to the shooter was that he wanted to take down Mexicans. He wanted to get rid of the Hispanic people here in El Paso. But he didn’t do that. He failed,” she said. “He didn’t win.”
Crusius reportedly smirked, rolled his eyes or smiled at times as witnesses spoke in court. When asked by the son of a victim whether he regretted carrying out the mass shooting, Crusius nodded yes, according to news reports.
Crusius’s plea agreement stipulated the 90 life sentences, one for each count on which he was indicted - 45 counts of a hate crime-related charge and 45 counts of using a firearm during violent crimes. He also pleaded guilty to other hate crime and firearm charges relating to the 22 people injured.
Federal prosecutors did not seek the death penalty for Crusius, but prosecutors in the ongoing case in Texas state court still could, if Crusius is convicted in that case.
“We are still going to be seeking the death penalty on the Walmart shooter,” El Paso County District Attorney Bill D. Hicks said at a Thursday news conference, saying Crusius would be in county custody in October or November, after which his trial would be scheduled.
“We have waited four years to prosecute him. Waiting another couple of months is not going to change anything,” Hicks said. “I am committed to seeking justice for the people of this community.”
Those killed were: Andre Anchondo, 23; Jordan Anchondo, 24; Arturo Benavides, 60; Jorge Calvillo García, 61; Guillermo Garcia, 36; Leonardo Campos, 41; Maribel Hernandez, 56; Adolfo Cerros Hernández, 68; Sara Esther Regalado, 66; Angelina Englisbee, 86; Raul Flores, 83; Maria Flores, 77; Alexander Gerhard Hoffmann, 66; David Johnson, 63; Luis Juarez, 90; Maria Eugenia Legarreta, 58; Ivan Filiberto Manzano, 41; Gloria Irma Márquez, 61; Elsa Mendoza, 57; Margie Reckard, 63; Javier Amir Rodriguez, 15; Teresa Sanchez, 82; and Juan de Dios Velázquez, 77.