Details are still coming in, but we fully expect the initial reports of multiple gunmen to be whittled down in the official narrative to another 'lone gunman'...
No word yet on the number of dead, but dozens have been injured.
Here's RT:
At least 18 people have been shot at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, local media reports. Police are searching for possibly multiple shooters, while footage of victims and shocking accounts of witnesses have emerged.
One suspect has been placed in custody, El Paso police told local TV, adding that the search of the crime scene and its surroundings continues. Police confirmed "multiple" people have been killed but have so far refused to reveal the exact number or the victims' identities.
Several extremely graphic videos, purportedly taken at the scene, have emerged online. One shows at least three bodies lying outside the Walmart and in its parking lot. In another one, people are seen fleeing the store past a person lying on the floor in a large blood puddle.
Meanwhile a short clip of a man hiding under furniture while multiple shots are heard in the background has been making the rounds in the media.
The shooting began to unfold at the Cielos Vista Mall area around 11am local time on Saturday, but more than an hour later, local law enforcement reported the scene was "still active."
Police said it received reports of "multiple shooters" and was "conducting search of a very large area."
Some witness accounts claim that a man armed with an AK-style rifle began shooting outside the Walmart and then went on a rampage inside the store. Others suggest that at least two or more attackers were at the scene.A woman and her daughter described seeing at least three men dressed in black shooting shoppers at the Walmart. Asked if she might have confused them for police, she reaffirmed that they were the perpetrators [click on tweet to view video]:
With limited details available, local media said at least 18 people were "shot" in the attack, and that several of them are feared dead. Footage from the scene shows heavily armed officers and police helicopters deployed.
Here's a bird's eye view of the location:
The mayor of El Paso, Dee Margo, has told CNN that police have three suspects in custody. (Count them: one, two, THREE...)
Another day, same old sadistic gaslighting of the American people:
They're nothing if not predictable in their schemes to divide and distract people.
Update 4 Aug 2019, 06:00 CET
El Paso police have announced the death toll to be 20, making this atrocity one of America's worst.
Another 26 people were injured. This would mean the (barely) 21-year-old amateur managed to kill someone with every second shot he fired - an extremely unlikely scenario.
Bizarrely, he was "taken into custody without incident" and without any police having to fire their weapons. The whole event was apparently stitched up by the time police arrived on the scene...
Update 4 Aug 12:00 CET
As is typical for America's bigger mass shootings, there has been a 'mid-sized' follow-up, this time in Dayton, Ohio, where someone armed a long gun appears to have 'randomly' opened fire, killing at least 9 people.
In this case, police arrived on the scene and stopped the perpetrator by shooting him dead.
Is this some sort of 'double-tap'? A reverberation of some sort following 'the main event'? Either way, it 'boosts' the country's dose of vitriolic 'debate' for the next few weeks.
There's certainly some kind of 'cross-over' or 'reverb' between the El Paso massacre and one of last week's 'warm-up' pair of mass shootings at the Gilroy Garlic festival in California...
Update 4 Aug 22:00 CET
Another eyewitness describes the gunman he saw as being 6ft tall, dressed in 'all-black', shooting from an AK-47, and wearing a mask.
As per the above blurry still from a CCTV pointed at the Walmart entrance - the first image of him leaked to the media - Crusius was wearing beige/sandy cargo pants, ear protection and no mask. It's possible that the witness was mistaken about the color of the pants, and that Crusius removed a mask at some point, but it's also possible that this witness took fire a different gunman.
Updates 4 Aug 23:30 CET
The police have finally published details about the other shooting event that took place in Dayton, Ohio yesterday. There the perp - also apparently acting alone - killed 9 people (among them his sister, suggesting a personal motive) and injured 26... with an AK-47. Last week, the 19-year-old - again, like the two perps yesterday, young white males - who shot up the Garlic Festival in Gilroy, CA... used an AK-47.
Since when did the AK-47 become American mass killers' weapon of choice? They're nearly always caught with an AR-15...
Here's footage of the somewhat 'pedestrian' arrest of 'Patrick Crusius':
The official timeline has the first emergency call being made at 10:39am, with the first police arriving on scene 6 minutes later. One eyewitness describes hiding at the rear of the Walmart after the first shots were fired, waiting for about 20 minutes, then hearing more shots fired as people attempted to return to the front of the store.
If the cops essentially just picked up an unarmed Patrick Crusius, who had apparently dropped his weapon and surrendered without resisting arrest, why was there no engagement while both perpetrator and police were on scene for about 15 minutes?
Update 5 Aug 13:00 CET
Two photos are circulating in the media of 'Patrick Crusius'. Are they two different photos of two different people?
Update 5 Aug 23:30 CET
The death toll in the El Paso mass shooting has now risen to 22, after two victims succumbed to their gunshot wounds and died in hospital today.
Update 6 Aug 15:05 EDT
El Paso police say Crusius made an 11-hour trip by car to El Paso from Allen, got lost, and stopped at Walmart "because he was hungry". "Law enforcement officials" told ABC that he "cased" the Walmart before the shooting:
The suspect, identified as Patrick Crusius, 21, told investigators following his arrest that he allegedly set out to kill as many Mexicans as he could, according to authorities.This much at least lines up with what several witnesses have related: that they heard the shooting coming from outside at first, then getting closer until the shooter entered the Walmart. For example (another account of the shooter shooting people "randomly" in the parking lot here; Alden Hall was also in produce, and saw the shooter come through the doors wearing a black t-shirt, beige pants, ear and eye protection):
On Monday, law enforcement officials told ABC News that Crusius cased the Walmart, going inside on Saturday without any weapons, apparently to size up the clientele inside the store, which is about 5 miles from the U.S.-Mexico border. Satisfied with what he saw among the 1,000 to 3,000 people that police estimate were inside at the time, Crusius exited the store and allegedly armed himself.
He returned wearing protective ear muffs, safety glasses and wielding a high-powered assault-style rifle, according to video surveillance of him inside the store. Police officials said he allegedly started firing indiscriminately at victims before he even walked through the front door.
This victim describes the shooter entering the bank in Walmart. Octavio Lizarde was in the bank with his 15-year-old nephew, Javier Rodrigues. Lizarde told ABC that he turned around to see the shooter aiming at Rodriguez, who then shot him in the head. He estimates the shooter shot about six people in the bank:
"He wanted everybody dead," he said. "He didn't talk. You could see in his face his intentions. ... He could have easily killed me but he just shot my foot and took off." Lizarde said he remembered the gunman wearing tactical glasses. He told Muir that a lady next to him was also shot in the head.He had moved out of his grandparents' house six weeks prior, but there hasn't been any news yet on where he was living (his mailing address remained his grandparents'). Police say his face was "stone cold" as they arrested him:
"It was a look I'd never seen before, and I've been on this force for 31 years," the official said. "I've seen murderers, robbers, nothing like this." ... Crusius was arrested Saturday after he drove to an intersection just north of the store. Crusius got out of his car and surrendered to an El Paso motorcycle police officer, El Paso police Sgt. Enrique Carrillo said. While surrendering, Crusius put his hands up and identified himself as the shooter, Carrillo said. While in custody, Crusius has been "cold" in his interactions with police, police officials told CNN. Police Chief Greg Allen told reporters Monday that Crusius has been cooperative, though he's shown no remorse and "appears to be in a state of shock and confusion."This is what he'd apparently written on his LinkedIn profile:
"I'm not really motivated to do anything more than what's necessary to get by. Working in general sucks, but i guess a career in Software Development suits me well. I spend about 8 hours every day on the computer so that counts towards technology experience I guess," the profile said. He also wrote that he worked as a bagger at a grocery store for five months until he lost his mode of transportation. Under "activities" he wrote, "I don't really participate in extracurricular activities b/c of a lack of freedom."Some of Crusius's high school classmates have spoken to media, describing him as something of a loner, uninterested in making friends, and that "no one really wanted to work with him in group settings" because he wouldn't listen and would just do his own thing.
Update 10 Aug 16:20 EDT
A few tidbits from some recent articles follow. First from WSJ:
When Mr. Crusius discussed current events, history and politics with his grandfather, with whom he lived for a while, his ideas didn't appear to be out of the mainstream, according to Mr. Ayres [the Crusius family's lawyer]. Like many young men in Texas, he occasionally went to the gun range with his father.
...
He has told investigators that he came to his views by doing research online, according to a law-enforcement official with knowledge of the investigation, and didn't speak to or organize with other white nationalists in person. He said he read the manifesto by the perpetrator of the Christchurch massacre in New Zealand and thought it had the right message.
...
Mr. Ayres, his family's lawyer, said the family is baffled by where he picked up some of the ideas contained in the manifesto, which seemed more sophisticated than the way he usually talked. His grandfather, Mr. Ayres said, "never got the impression that Patrick was going to a dark or strange place."
...
After his arrest, Mr. Crusius has spoken at length to authorities. "He basically didn't hold anything back," El Paso Chief Greg Allen said. "He expected to die."
...
Mr. Crusius was last seen by his twin sister when the two hung out at their grandparents' house on Aug. 1, two days before the shooting. She didn't notice anything out the ordinary with her brother, Mr. Ayres said. Mr. Crusius also visited the home the next night before making the approximately 10-hour drive to El Paso, but no other family members were there.
And this unverified bit from CNN:
Crusius claimed he targeted El Paso because, in part, he wanted distance between target and his hometown on the other side of Texas, three sources with knowledge of the investigation told CNN. Crusius told investigators this was one reason why he chose El Paso, the sources said. Crusius believed that if he committed the attack near his home in a suburb of Dallas, his family and acquaintances would have known that he did it, the sources said.
The white supremacist is a Nazi Antifa, Hitlers SS They all need to be hunted down and eliminated off this planet.