Patrick Crusius, who killed 23 people at a popular Hispanic supermarket in El Paso in 2019, will eventually plead guilty in federal court, according to court documents. A judge has set the hearing for February 8 to formalize his change of strategy and avoid a federal trial. He is still facing a murder trial in the state of Texas, which has not ruled out seeking the death penalty.
Charged with “racist crimes resulting in death”, the 24-year-old American “notified the court of his intention to plead guilty”, a week after prosecutors had given up asking for the death penalty.
He denounced a “Hispanic invasion of Texas”
In early August 2019, Patrick Crusius had posted a document containing the theses of white supremacy. He denounced a “Hispanic invasion of Texas” and praised the author of the massacre in the mosques of Christchurch in New Zealand (51 dead on March 15). He then drove about ten hours from the suburbs of Dallas where he lived, to El Paso, a predominantly Hispanic city on the border with Mexico, where he opened fire with a semi-automatic rifle in a hypermarket. Walmart.
When the police arrived, he got out of a vehicle, hands in the air, saying: “I am the shooter”. While in police custody, he admitted that he wanted to attack “Mexicans”. The carnage left 23 dead, including eight Mexican nationals and a majority of Hispanic Americans. It had deeply shocked America and opened a debate on the responsibility for the anti-immigrant diatribes of Republican President Donald Trump.
The carnage of El Paso remains one of the deadliest killings in the history of the United States, yet regularly bereaved by shootings.