2019 El Paso Walmart shooting
On August 3, 2019, a mass shooting occurred at a Walmart store in El Paso, Texas, United States. The gunman, 21-year-old Patrick Wood Crusius, shot 45 people, killing 23 and injuring 22 others. The Federal Bureau of Investigation investigated the shooting as an act of domestic terrorism and a hate crime. The shooting has been described as the deadliest attack on Latinos in modern American history.
Crusius surrendered and was arrested and charged with capital murder in connection with the shooting. He posted a manifesto with white nationalist and anti-immigrant themes on the imageboard 8chan shortly before the attack. The manifesto cites the Christchurch mosque shootings in New Zealand earlier that year and the far-right conspiracy theory known as the Great Replacement as inspiration for the attack. In 2023, Crusius pleaded guilty to 90 federal murder and hate crime charges, and he was sentenced to 90 consecutive life sentences.
Crusius pleaded guilty to the state charges on April 21, 2025, and was sentenced to life in prison without parole.
Events
Preceding
Around midnight before the shooting, Crusius left his grandparents' house in Allen, Texas. Throughout the entire night, he drove to El Paso, Texas. He stopped his car for gas and energy drinks twice throughout the journey. The next morning, Crusius eventually made it to El Paso at around 8a.m. For roughly an hour, he drove around El Paso with no clear target in mind. He also stopped at a pizzeria but left because it was closed. He arrived at the Walmart near the Cielo Vista Mall on the east side of El Paso at around 9a.m. Crusius entered the store and walked around for half an hour to carry out a reconnaissance of the building. He went back to his car and waited for a few minutes before entering the store again to purchase an orange. He ate the orange in the store before heading back to his car.At 10:15a.m., while sitting in his car, Crusius opened his laptop, went on the imageboard 8chan, and started a thread titled, "ITS TIME". Accompanied with text, he accidentally uploaded a PDF file of a discipline letter sent by his college for attending a class while drunk. Five minutes later, he posted a reply in the thread and uploaded the PDF file of his manifesto.
At 10:37a.m., Crusius walked to the back of his car to gear up and pull out a WASR-10 rifle, a semi-automatic civilian version of the AKM, from the trunk. A minute later, he closed the trunk and began opening fire.
Shooting
Crusius first killed a woman pushing a shopping cart before shooting several people near and at a fundraising event for the El Paso Fusion girls soccer team outside the store. During this initial shooting, Crusius killed three people and injured six in the parking lot.The store manager witnessed Crusius firing in the parking lot prior to entering the crowded store. He issued a "Code Brown", designating an active shooter, to his employees, who began helping customers evacuate or hide. Approximately 3,000 people were in the mall's complex at the time of the shooting. Many customers and employees fled to adjacent stores or hid under tables or in shipping containers located behind the building.
At 10:39a.m., Crusius entered the Walmart through the west entrance. As he walked in, he fatally shot an elderly man who tried running from him before walking to his right. He walked along the front of the store eastwards and fired at people along the way. He then turned towards a First Convenience Bank inside the store and shot several people in the bank lobby, killing nine. Crusius moved on to shoot people in the checkout lines, killing nine. Crusius eventually stopped shooting and began sprinting towards the exit. He reached the eastern doors of the store at 10:41a.m. In total, he shot and killed 19 people and injured 15 others inside the Walmart building.
As Crusius left the building, he stopped to open fire on a moving car in the parking lot, killing a man and injuring his wife. Without shooting anyone else, Crusius returned to his car while still holding the rifle.
It is determined that Crusius had fired approximately 90 rounds or less. He reloaded his rifle twice during the shooting.
Immediate aftermath
s began to arrive within six minutes of the initial 9-1-1 call. The El Paso Police Department, Texas Rangers, and paramedics responded to the scene along with the FBI and the ATF.After the shooting, Crusius drove to the intersection of Sunmount and Viscount. Arriving there, he stopped at the left turn lane, came out of the car with his hands up and identified himself as the shooter to Texas Rangers and an El Paso motorcycle officer. He was then arrested and transported to police headquarters.
Victims
The shooting has been described as the deadliest anti-Latino attack in recent U.S. history, resulting in 23 deaths and 22 injuries. Twenty of the victims were pronounced dead at the scene, one victim died the day after the event, another victim died two days after, and a third died eight months later on April 26, 2020. Among the dead were thirteen Americans, eight Mexicans and one German. The names, ages, and citizenships of 22 of the dead were released by the El Paso Police Department on August 5. Seventeen were 56 or older, two were in their 40s, two in their 20s, one was 36, and one was 15.Thirteen victims were taken to the University Medical Center of El Paso, and another eleven to the Del Sol Medical Center. Two children, ages 2 and 9, were transferred to El Paso Children's Hospital after their conditions were stabilized. The Del Sol Medical Center patients were between 35 and 82 years old.
Perpetrator
Patrick Wood Crusius was arrested shortly after the shooting and charged with capital murder. A 21-year-old white man, he was last known to have lived in his family's home in Allen, Texas, in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, approximately from El Paso. He graduated in 2017 from Plano Senior High School, and was enrolled at Collin College from 2017 until spring 2019.Crusius legally purchased a GP WASR-10 semi-automatic rifle and 1,000 rounds of hollow-point ammunition online in June 2019. During his first interrogation, he told detectives he had targeted Mexicans, according to an arrest warrant affidavit. Crusius was also diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder.
Crusius registered to vote in 2016 as a Republican and had a Twitter account from 2017 that showed a photo of Donald Trump in the Oval Office. He also had a pro-Trump poll that included responses such as "#BuildTheWall, #NoSanctuaryCities, #KeepGitmoOpen and #BanSyrianRefugees".
Manifesto
Crusius has admitted to posting a manifesto, titled The Inconvenient Truth, on the online message board 8chan shortly before the shooting. The post includes the suspect's name, and the manifesto identifies the type of weapon used in the attack. Site moderators quickly removed the original post, though users continued to share copies. Claiming to have been inspired by the Christchurch mosque shootings in New Zealand that killed 51 people earlier the same year, the author expresses support for the perpetrator of the Christchurch shootings and bemoans grievances such as environmental degradation, "cultural and ethnic replacement", and a "Hispanic invasion".The anti-Hispanic, anti-immigrant manifesto promotes the white nationalist and far-right conspiracy theory called the Great Replacement, often attributed to the French writer Renaud Camus. While the document uses language about immigrants similar to that used by U.S. president Donald Trump, such as referring to a migrant "invasion", it states that the author's beliefs predate Trump's presidency, and that Trump should not be blamed for the attack. The author's "racially extremist views", according to The New York Times, could be used to prosecute the shooting as a hate crime or domestic terrorism.
The manifesto states that Democrats would soon control the United States partly due to an increasing Hispanic population, an idea that had gained acceptance for years on right-wing radio shows. Criticizing both the Democratic Party and Republican Party for allowing corporations to "import foreign workers", the author describes the shooting as an "incentive" for Hispanics to leave the country, which would "remove the threat" of a Hispanic voting bloc. While primarily focused on ethnic and racial grievances, the document also expresses fears of automation's effects on employment and blames corporations for overusing natural resources.
Legal proceedings
The arrest warrant affidavit says Crusius waived his Miranda rights, confessed to detectives that he was the shooter, and admitted that he targeted "Mexicans" during the attack.Multiple investigations and jurisdictions were involved with the case. FBI officials in El Paso served multiple warrants in the Dallas area and interviewed acquaintances of Crusius in Dallas and San Antonio.
Federal charges
On February 6, 2020, Crusius was charged with 90 federal charges: 22 counts of committing a hate crime resulting in death, 22 counts of use of a firearm to commit murder, 23 counts of a hate crime involving an attempt to kill, and 23 counts of use of a firearm during a crime.Crusius waived his federal bond hearing on February 12, 2020, during his first federal court appearance. On July 23, 2020, Crusius entered a plea of not-guilty to federal charges. He also waived his arraignment on those charges.
In July 2020, the federal court granted a defense motion for more time to investigate "a number of 'red-flag' mitigation themes" as federal prosecutors decided whether to seek a death sentence. In the motion, the defense said that Crusius had "severe" lifelong neurological and mental disabilities; that he was treated with antipsychotic medication after his arrest; and that he was in a "psychotic state" when arrested.
The trial was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the large volume of evidence. At a February 2022 hearing, the defense team requested a trial start date of March 2025 or later, while federal prosecutors asked for a June 2023 trial date. Defense attorneys said they needed more time to comb through 1.76 million files and 763 gigabytes of video obtained through the discovery process, and told U.S. District Judge David C. Guaderrama that the defense might raise an insanity defense. In January 2023, federal prosecutors declined to seek the death penalty for Crusius. On February 8, 2023, Crusius pleaded guilty to 90 federal murder and hate crime charges. Before sentencing, when asked if he felt remorse, he nodded. On July 7, 2023, Crusius was sentenced to 90 consecutive life sentences.