the author of the El Paso massacre in 2019 sentenced to 90 life sentences by the federal justice

Denouncing a “Hispanic invasion of Texas”, Patrick Crusius opened fire in a Walmart supermarket with a semi-automatic rifle. He now faces the death penalty in a Texas court.

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Patrick Crusius, perpetrator of the 2019 El Paso shootings, attends an arraignment hearing, Oct. 10, 2019, in El Paso, Texas.  (MARK LAMBIE/AP/SIPA)

In 2019, he killed 23 people in a Texas supermarket popular with the Hispanic community in El Paso. A young American follower of white supremacy was sentenced on Friday July 7 to 90 consecutive life sentences by a federal court. Patrick Crusius, 24, had pleaded guilty to 90 charges against him, including “racist crimes resulting in death”. He is still facing a lawsuit before the justice of the State of Texas, which has not ruled out seeking capital punishment against him.

Before his massacre, Patrick Crusius had put online a document containing the theses of white supremacy, in which he denounced a “Hispanic Invasion of Texas”. He then drove about ten hours from the suburbs of Dallas, where he lived, to El Paso, a predominantly Hispanic city, where he opened fire with a semi-automatic rifle in a Walmart hypermarket. When the police arrived, he got out of a vehicle, hands in the air, claiming to be the shooter. While in police custody, he had admitted having wanted to attack “Mexicans”.

The carnage left 23 people dead, including eight Mexican nationals and a majority of Hispanic Americans. It had deeply shocked the United States and opened a debate on the responsibility for the anti-immigrant diatribes of Republican President Donald Trump. The El Paso massacre remains one of the deadliest killings in the history of the United States, yet regularly bereaved by shootings.


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