The shooter who opened fire at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas in 2019 killing 23 people and injuring dozens more will serve numerous life sentences in prison.
According to a U.S. Department of Justice press release, Patrick Crusius was sentenced on Friday to 90 consecutive life sentences in prison after entering a guilty plea to 90 federal counts in U.S. District Court in February, including 45 offenses related to hate crimes and 45 charges involving firearms.
After a three-day sentencing hearing where several family members of those who died took the stand to express their hurt and anger at what happened, Senior U.S. District Judge David C. Guaderrama handed down the sentence at the Albert Armendariz Sr. Federal Courthouse in Downtown El Paso, according to USA Today.
Attorney General Merrick B. Garland stated in the Department of Justice statement: “The 90 consecutive life sentences announced today ensure that Patrick Crusius will spend the rest of his life in prison for his deadly, racist rampage in El Paso.”
He continued, “We are grateful to the victims and their loved ones who have heroically spent the last three days revealing the destruction and suffering they faced as a result of Crusius’s heinous deeds. The Justice Department is “unwaveringly committed to combating hate crimes.”
NBC News reports that on August 23, a 24-year-old man carrying a WASR-10, a Romanian semi-automatic version of the AK-47 assault rifle, and 1,000 rounds of 7.62 mm hollow-point ammunition made his way from Allen, a city north of Dallas, to the Cielo Vista Walmart in El Paso, Texas.
According to USA Today, he started shooting individuals in the parking lot and then moved into the store, where he killed numerous people in the aisles and a bank. There were 23 fatalities and 22 other injuries, including some locals from Juárez and El Paso, Mexico.
The shooter eventually claimed, according to court documents, that he wanted to kill everyone he shot and had targeted that particular Walmart and the individuals inside of it because of their national origin.
According to the DOJ, he identified himself as a white supremacist who was “motivated to kill Hispanics” in order to stop them from entering to the United States in a manifesto that he posted online minutes before the attack.
Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division described the hate crime that claimed the lives of 23 innocent individuals as “one of the most horrific acts of white nationalist-driven violence in modern times.”
As she said, “We lift up the legacies of those who lost their lives and those who survived this tragedy and will ensure that they are never forgotten.”
