The El Paso, Texas shooting suspect confessed to police before he was arrested Saturday, according to the arrest affidavit unsealed Friday. On Saturday, the gunman opened fire at a Walmart, killing 22 people and injuring more than two dozen others. The suspect was identified as 21-year-old Patrick Crusius of Allen, Texas.
According to the affidavit, written by El Paso Police Detective Adrian Garcia, Texas Rangers arrested the suspect at an intersection.
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“Agents and police officers at the intersection then observed a male person (defendant) to exit out of the vehicle with his hands raised in the air and stated out loud to the agents ‘I’m the shooter,’” Garcia wrote, reports NBC News.
The defendant told police he drove to El Paso from Allen, a suburb north of Dallas located more than 600 miles from the scene of the shooting. The defendant said he went into the store with an AK-style assault rifle and opened fire.
“The defendant stated his target were ‘Mexicans,’” Garcia wrote, adding that Crusius waived his Miranda Rights to speak with detectives.
Minutes before the shooting, a manifesto attributed to the gunman surfaced on 8chan titled “The Inconvenient Truth.” In the document, the writer declares his support for the gunman who carried out the attacks on mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand in March. The writer also said the El Paso attack “is a response to the Hispanic invasion of Texas.” Police have not confirmed the document’s author.
El Paso is right on the border with Mexico. According to the latest U.S. Census data, over 80 percent of the city’s population is of Hispanic descent.
Weeks before the shooting, Crusius’ mother called Allen police, concerned about her son owning an AK-style assault rifle, family attorneys Chris Ayres and R. Jack Ayres said Thursday. The attorneys described the call as “informational,” and that his mother did not specifically have concerns her son would carry out a mass shooting.
Crusius’ mother spoke with a public safety officer who told her that Crusius could legally own the weapon because he is 21 years old.
Crusius was charged with capital murder and is being held without bail. Prosecutors have said they will seek the death penalty. According to CNN, federal authorities are treating the shooting as domestic terrorism. On Sunday, FBI El Paso Special Agent in Charge Emmerson Buie said they will continue to investigate the case to see if it warrants hate crime charges.
“Right now, it is a murder investigation,” Buie told CNN. “There is potential for a number of different other violations, and we’re reviewing all the evidence to make a determination as to what potentially else is out there, in addition to the violations that have been stated that the local authorities are pursuing.”
Photo credit: MARK RALSTON/AFP/Getty Images
