A mass shooting inside a Wal-Mart in El Paso, Texas left at least 15 and as many as 20 dead after a gunman opened fire there. It didn’t take long for the “thoughts and prayers” comments to start, but after more than 200 mass shootings so far this year, no real action has yet been taken.
The #ElPaso shooter is a white nationalist. And, among the six leading national newspapers in the US, only two devoted their websites’ front pages to the #Brownsville shooting. Racism—direct and structural—plus guns are lethal in all forms. @YouthOverGuns @shaunking
— NYAGV (@NYAGV1) August 3, 2019
The shooter has been identified as 21-year-old Patrick Crusius, who is believed to have written a manifesto before the shooting. Although his social media accounts were quickly shut down, writings believed to have been posted by the shooter include a horrifying level of hatred for immigrants and violent rantings by a young white supremacist.
‘Hispanics will take control of the local and state government of my beloved Texas… They will turn Texas into an instrument of a political coup…Our European comrades don’t have the gun rights needed to repel the millions of invaders.’
OFFICIAL RULING: I believe I have seen enough raw data to call the #ELPasoMallShooting an act of domenstic terror so it is the #ElPasoTerroristAttack. The suspect should heretofore be referred to as “the terrorist” NOT “the shooter”.
— Malcolm Nance (@MalcolmNance) August 3, 2019
Crusias seems to have believed that our government is being taken over, or in his and someone else in the White House’s words, “infested,” by undocumented immigrants. He made statements intimating that a race war is on the horizon, and that Democrats are already backing who they see as the potentially winning side: immigrants.
‘America will soon become a one party-state. The Democrat party will own America and they know it. They have already begun the transition by pandering heavily to the Hispanic voting bloc in the 1st Democratic Debate.’
"The job of my dreams will likely be automated," says the white nationalist shooter in El Paso today, before taking 19 lives and injuring over 20 more. Is this the first mass shooting manifesto to refer to technological unemployment in addition to an "infestation" of immigrants? https://t.co/lWK1gFjucr
— Scott Santens (@scottsantens) August 3, 2019
The alleged domestic terrorist was careful to point out that his views on immigrants existed long before Trump first announced his candidacy by calling undocumented immigrants rapists and drug dealers, when Crusias would have been all of 18 years old, but it’s not exactly a revelation that racism against brown people didn’t begin with Donald Trump. Trump’s rhetoric emboldens white supremacists, even if he isn’t their founding father.
‘My ideology has not changed for several years. My opinions on automation, immigration, and the rest predate Trump and his campaign for president. I putting this here because some people will blame the President…for the attack. This is not the case.’
For video of the news coverage from El Paso, see video below:
Featured image screenshot via YouTube