Two more El Paso shooting victims die at hospital, raising death toll to 22
The Texas border city jolted by a weekend massacre at a Walmart absorbed still more grief Monday as the death toll climbed to 22 and fear lingered in El Paso, where the shooting rampage claimed more lives than the number of murders here just two years ago.
Anger also simmered, including toward President Donald Trump, who on Monday addressed the nation for the first time since the attack in Texas and another in Ohio that killed 31 people in all and wounded dozens more.
The mayor of El Paso says President Donald Trump will visit the city Wednesday following a weekend mass shooting that killed 22 people. The White House hasn't announced the trip but the Federal Aviation Administration has advised pilots of a presidential visit that day to El Paso and Dayton, where a second weekend shooting left nine people dead.
El Paso Mayor Dee Margo says he's "already getting emails and phone calls" about welcoming Trump to town. Democratic lawmakers and some residents have said Trump isn't welcome in the largely Latino border city based on his past anti-immigrant rhetoric.
In scripted remarks from the White House, Trump urged unity while blaming mental illness and video games. He made no mention of limiting gun sales.
Democratic Rep. Veronica Escobar of El Paso made clear that the president was not welcome in her hometown as it mourned. Other residents in the city of 700,000 said Monday that they too wanted Trump to stay away.
"It's offensive just because most of us here are Hispanic," said Isel Velasco, 25, standing outside a grocery story on a sweltering afternoon. "It's not like he's going to help or do anything about it."
Authorities are scrutinizing a racist, anti-immigrant screed posted online shortly before police say Patrick Crusius, 21, opened fire on Saturday. Language in the document mirrors some of the words used by Trump, who on Monday denounced white supremacy, which he has been reluctant to criticize.
Federal authorities said they are weighing hate-crime charges against Crusius. He has been booked on state capital murder charges, which also carry a possible death penalty.
Authorities in El Paso said Monday evening that Crusius wound up at the store after driving more than 10 hours from the Dallas area.
El Paso Police Chief Greg Allen said that the gunman got lost in a neighborhood before ending up at Walmart "because, we understand, he was hungry." Allen didn't elaborate. The details were some of the first to come out regarding the suspected gunman's movements in El Paso prior to the shooting Saturday.
Crusius lived in Allen and graduated from Plano Senior High School in 2017. His grandparents issued a statement Sunday to FOX4 saying they were "devastated" by the rampage.
Police say the rifle he used came from his hometown.
“It was bought near his hometown in Allen, Texas,” Chief Allen said. “I don't have the exact details of that right now. The weapon was purchased legally. It's a 7.62 mm caliber weapon.”
Crusius, who is being held without bond, said in his application for a public defender that he has no income or assets and has been unemployed for five months.
The justice department is now considering the death penalty at the federal level, considering pursuing federal hate crime charges against him because of the racist manifesto linked to him that was posted online before the shooting.
The El Paso shooting is one of the deadliest in U.S. history, and the death toll rose Monday as doctors announced that two more of the wounded had died. Dr. Stephen Flaherty of Del Sol Medical Center described the wounds as "devastating and major" and said that one patient who died had major abdominal injuries affecting the liver, kidneys and intestines.
The hospital did not release the names or ages of the two patients who died, but hospital officials described one as an elderly woman.
Mexican officials have said eight Mexican nationals were among the dead. Tens of thousands of Mexicans legally cross the border each day to work and shop in El Paso. Another patient remained in critical condition.
El Paso has long prided itself on being one of the safest cities in the nation. When years of drug cartel-driven violence in neighboring Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, left tens of thousands of people dead, El Paso still had one of the nation's lowest crime rates. Police reported 23 murders last year and 20 the year before that, making Saturday's rampage a year's worth of bloodshed.
Authorities searched for any links between the suspect and the material in the document that was posted online, including the writer's expression of concern that an influx of Hispanics into the United States will replace aging white voters, potentially turning Texas blue in elections and swinging the White House to Democrats.
The shootings in Texas and Ohio were the 21st and 22nd mass killings of 2019 in the U.S., according to the AP/USA Today/Northeastern University mass murder database that tracks homicides where four or more people killed - not including the offender.
Including the two latest attacks, 126 people had been killed in the 2019 mass shootings.
Since 2006, 11 mass shootings - not including Saturday's - have been committed by men who are 21 or younger.