Global Courant
EL PASO, Texas – The man from Texas who shot and killed 23 people at an El Paso Walmart in a targeted attack on people of Mexican descent was sentenced to 90 consecutive life sentences on Friday.
Patrick Crusius, van Allen, in February agreed to consecutive life sentences then he pleaded guilty to 90 federal countsincluding 45 hate crime allegations.
The judge asked that he be sent to ADX Florencea maximum facility prison in Fremont County, Colorado, and requested mental health treatment for him.
The gunman traveled nearly 600 miles from North Texas to El Paso before opening fire on shoppers with a WASR-10 rifle on August 3, 2019.
Minutes before the attack, he posted a racist screed of hate online referring to an “invasion” of immigrants in the United States, the Justice Department said.
The department has said Crusius, who admitted to police that he was the shooteris a self-proclaimed white nationalist.
Sentencing began Wednesday and lasted for days relatives of the dead spoke to Crusius of their anger and of the damage he had done.
“Look at my son,” Francisco Javier Rodriguez, whose 15-year-old son Javier Amir was killed, said Thursday as an image of the teen appeared on a screen.
Kathleen Johnson told Crusius that he shot her husband, David Johnson, at close range in Aisle 3 that day.
“His innocent blood was everywhere. He was our breadwinner, loving father and grandfather,” says Johnson, who suffers from nightmares and post-traumatic stress disorder.
“I don’t even want to look at you,” she said.
Thomas Hoffman spoke about his father, Alexander Hoffman, sharing a photo of his parents celebrating 40 years of marriage and a plane ticket for a flight his father was scheduled to take that day.
“You shot my father in the back,” he said on Wednesday. “You are a coward.”
According to the indictment, the gunman bought the WASR-10, a Romanian-made semi-automatic variant of the AK-47 assault rifle, and 1,000 rounds of 7.62mm hollow point ammunition nearly two months before the attack. .
He drove overnight from Allen, north of Dallas, to El Paso before opening fire on people shopping at the Walmart on Saturday morning.
In addition to the 23 dead, 22 others were injured. The 23rd victim, Guillermo “Memo” Garcia, was injured and died in a hospital in April 2020almost nine months after the shooting.
When Crusius was indicted on federal hate crime chargesthen-Assistant U.S. Attorney General for Civil Rights Eric Dreiband called the mass shooting, and other similar hate crimes, heinous crimes designed to terrorize and intimidate.
“This kind of terror will not last‘ said Dreiband after the indictment of February 6, 2020.
The shooter pleaded guilty on February 8 to 45 counts of violating the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act and 45 Gun Counts, Justice Department said at the time.
– Kayla McCormick reported from El Paso, Phil Helsel reported from Los Angeles.
– Minyvonne Burke contributed.
