The perpetrator of a 2019 El Paso racist massacre was sentenced to 90 life sentences

Patrick Crusius, the well-known author of the 2019 supermarket massacre in El Paso (Texas, USA) that left 23 dead, was sentenced this Friday to 90 consecutive life sentences for that racist attack against Hispanics and immigrants.

Last February, Crusius pleaded guilty to 90 federal counts of murder and hate crime for the shooting at a Walmart store with a mostly Latino clientele, in exchange for which the US government has not asked for the death penalty.

However, Texas prosecutors plan to try him again for the same shooting in a statewide trial seeking the death penalty.

Since Wednesday, when the sentencing phase of the trial began in federal court in El Paso, Crusius has faced testimony from 36 relatives of the dead and survivors of the massacre about the impact the attack had on their lives.

A young survivor sobbed she “was a normal, happy teenager, until a coward chose to use violence against the innocent.”

A man whose mother was killed in the shooting asked Crusius if he slept well at night and if he was a white supremacist, to which the now-convicted man shook his head in denial, but nodded when asked if he regretted what he had done .

On August 3, 2019, Crusius, then 21, opened fire with a semi-automatic rifle on a Walmart store, sparking the largest massacre in the US against Latinos.

After turning himself in to police that same day and identifying himself as the perpetrator, Crusius told investigators he chose the Walmart store for his attack because it is close to the border with Mexico and because it is frequented by Hispanic customers , according to court documents. .

He first visited the store without carrying any weapons and came back equipped with earmuffs, plastic goggles and a semi-automatic rifle that he fired indiscriminately.

act of racism

He also admitted to publishing a manifesto online minutes before the massacre complaining of a “cultural and ethnic substitution” and a “Spanish Invasion” of the United States.

Despite avoiding the death penalty in the federal trial, Texas prosecutors plan to try him again for the same shooting in a statewide proceeding to seek the death penalty.

“We will still prosecute the Walmart shooter. And we will still seek the death penalty,” said El Paso District Attorney Bill Hicks, who nevertheless acknowledged that the jury will decide the inmate’s fate.

Hicks said he doesn’t know when the state trial will begin, but said it will be sometime in 2024 or 2025.

“The mass murder of two dozen people simply because they resembled me or members of my family by a white nationalist will always be one of the darkest days in my city,” said Mario Carrillo, campaign manager for the America’s Voice, an immigrant organization. who grew up in El Paso.

He stressed that his outrage is not limited to just the perpetrator, citing Texas Governor Greg Abbott and U.S. Senator Ted Cruz, “among many other Republicans,” for spreading “hateful conspiracies and falsehoods.”