(Washington) The man suspected of having opened fire on Saturday and killed eight people in a Texas shopping center had been expelled in 2008 from the American army, after less than three months of exercise, said Monday a door- word.
The shooter, shot by a police officer during the shooting, has been identified as Mauricio Garcia, a 33-year-old man from Dallas in the southern United States.
He entered the Army “in June 2008, and was discharged three months later without completing his initial training,” Heather Hagan, spokeswoman for the United States Army, said Monday, adding that the he man had not been deployed in the field or decorated.
She did not specify the reasons for her hasty departure.
The authorities also refused to comment on the suspected affiliation of the suspect to far-right groups reported by American media. A police source, however, confirmed that these elements came from a leaked investigation document.
According to several American media and the investigation site Bellingcat, the suspect had an account on a Russian social network on which he shared remarks with misogynistic and neo-Nazi connotations, but also his concerns about his own mental health.
On Saturday, a man dressed in paramilitary gear and armed with an assault rifle opened fire at a mall in Allen, north of Dallas, where many shoppers were shopping for the weekend, killing eight people and hurting others.
According to US media, three children were killed, including a three-year-old boy and his two parents. Only his 6-year-old brother survived the killing.
Two sisters aged 8 and 11, a 20-year-old security guard and a 26-year-old engineer are also among the victims.
With more guns than people, the United States has the highest gun death tolls of any developed country: 49,000 in 2021, up from 45,000 in 2020.
The specialized site Gun Violence Archive has already identified more than 199 acts in the United States this year where four or more people were injured or killed by gunshots.