El Paso shooting suspect charged with capital murder

PanARMENIAN.Net - It took the first officer six minutes to arrive to an El Paso, Texas, Walmart on Saturday, August 3 morning after reports of an active shooter, CNN reports.

By then, a massacre that would become one of the 10 deadliest in modern US history had already unfolded. A 21-year-old white supremacist is suspected of killing at least 20 people and injuring 26 others in the shooting -- one of at least three to devastate residents across the US in the past week.

Shocked shoppers slid under tables, others ran for their lives, one mother shielded her infant from the spray of bullets while another ran away with her 7-year-old daughter.

The suspect -- who sources identified to CNN as Patrick Crusius of Allen, Texas -- has been charged with capital murder and is being held without bond, El Paso Police Sgt. Robert Gomez said. He was arrested without incident Saturday after getting out of his vehicle and approaching police unarmed as they arrived at the Walmart. He has been cooperating with authorities, Gomez said.

As El Paso Police Chief Greg Allen walked into the shooting's aftermath, the scene was "horrific," he said.

"When I first got to this job," he said, "I never knew there was an odor to blood, but there is ... It will leave an impression that you'll never forget."

Authorities are now investigating a racist, anti-immigrant document they believe was posted online by the suspect. That document states it took less than a month to plan the shooting.

It was published on the online message board 8chan about 20 minutes before the shooting started. It lays out a dark vision of America overrun by Hispanic immigrants.

The 2,300-word "manifesto," as police called it, was attached to a post that read: "I'm probably going to die today." The document is filled with white supremacist language and racist hatred aimed at immigrants and Latinos and blames immigrants and first-generation Americans for taking away jobs.

The writer cited a fear that an influential Hispanic population in Texas would make the state a "Democratic stronghold" and said "the Republican Party is also terrible" because the GOP is in his mind pro-corporation, which could lead to more immigration.

The writer said he held these beliefs before Donald Trump became President.