Patrick Crusius, who was in the Walmart shooting, pleaded guilty to 90 federal charges
The Los Angeles Times Observation of the September 9, 2019 El Paso Shooting: A Case Study in Crusius’s Criminal Trial
The man accused in the worst mass shooting in the history of the United States was handcuffed in an El Paso courtroom, and he showed little emotion.
The man sat next to his defense team as he repeatedly stated that he understood his rights after pleading guilty. During the first reading of the charges and explanation, Crusius kept his head down, looking at the table in front of him.
The crowd was silent when he was asked to stand and the people in the audience could be seen wiping their eyes. Several family members of the victims were in the audience.
“We’re glad that it was finally done,” defense attorney Joe Spencer told reporters after court. “And he’s glad that it was finally done. There is no winner in this case. He’s going to be serving 90 consecutive life sentences.”
After federal prosecutors stated last month they would not seek the death penalty, attorneys for Crusius filed a motion for a re-arraignment and indicated he would change his plea.
The August 3, 2019, massacre in which almost twenty people were wounded is one of the state charges against him. The slain included a 15-year-old soccer player and a 60-year-old Army veteran who would give “a meal and a home to anyone.”
The El Paso Insular Shootout: A Response to the Hispanic Invasion of Texas and the Victim’s Family
At a January status hearing in the state case, El Paso’s District Attorney Bill Hicks said a trial date won’t be set until after sentencing in the federal case, according to CNN affiliate KFOX. Hicks added the state trial could start in 2024 or 2025, but the schedule will be up to the district court judge.
Authorities in El Paso say the suspect drove from Allen, Texas, to the city with the sole intent of killing immigrants and Mexicans.
The suspect is believed to have posted a letter on the internet about 20 minutes before the massacre. It included White supremacist language, opposed “race mixing” and encouraged immigrants to return to their home countries.
“This attack is a response to the Hispanic invasion of Texas,” Crusius wrote, according to an indictment. “They are the instigators, not me. I am simply defending my country from cultural and ethnic replacement brought on by the invasion.”
The indictment states the suspect purchased a gun and 1,000 rounds of hollow-point bullets online weeks before his shooting.
The US government does not plan to seek the death penalty when sentencing is scheduled later this year. The 90 federal charges that were charged were all life sentences with the exception of one.
Albert Hernandez, whose sister and brother-in-law were killed in the attack, was one of about 40 people with close ties to the victims in the court gallery. He said that Crucius was trying to “save his own skin” by pleading guilty.
The El Paso Walmart Shooting: Confronting the U.S. Constitution with the “Text” Prosecutor Greg Abbott
The shooting happened on a busy weekend at a Walmart that is popular with shoppers from the US and Mexico. In addition to those killed, more than twenty others were injured and hundreds more were scarred by being near someone who had been injured.
A detailed narrative of the attack was presented by prosecutors during the plea hearing on Wednesday.
The nine people were killed at a bank near the entrance whenCrusius moved into the store. Among them were husband and wife Jordan and Andre Anchondo, whose infant son survived with broken bones in a hand.
The anti-immigration rhetoric and racists put out by other mass murderers in the U.S. and abroad were all contained in the writings of Crusius.
Three years after a shooting on the U.S.-Mexico border, the term “invasion” continues to be used in American politics. The characterization of immigrants as anti-Immigrant was condemned in the wake of El Paso.
Greg Abbott, a Republican, has recently embraced using the word “invasion” while authorizing hardline immigration measures. Abbott wrote a letter to state police and the Texas National Guard in order to defend Texas against invasion.
Abbott claims that he is using language in the U.S. Constitution. Legal scholars say that it is a misinterpretation of the clause.
Source: https://www.npr.org/2023/02/08/1155614286/el-paso-walmart-shooting-guilty-plea-federal-hate-crime-weapons-charges
The U.S. has shifted from fringes to mainstream: tracking a GOP conspiracy to take over the US, as revealed by America’s Voice
America’s Voice said it tracked over 80 Republican candidates during last year’s elections who they believed to be part of a conspiracy to take over the US.
“I believe it’s been around for a while,” said the political director of America’s Voice. “What I would say is that in 2021, there was a marked shift where it went from the fringes of the Republican Party into the mainstream of the Republican Party.”
There have been more mass killings in the U.S. linked to hate crime in recent years, according to a database compiled by The Associated Press and USA Today. The Walmart shooting was the worst of the 13 instances. Every mass killing in the U.S. since 2006 has been tracked by the database.
