The gunman who killed 23 people and injured 22 others in a mass shooting at a Texas Walmart in 2019 has accepted a plea deal, avoiding the death penalty.
Patrick Crusius, 26, pleaded guilty to capital murder and 22 counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon on April 21 before Judge Sam Medrano of the 409th District. He was sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole for the attack, considered one of the deadliest in American history, in which he admitted that he was targeting Hispanics.
The bearded and bespectacled gunman, who terrified a store full of shoppers with a WASR-10 rifle on Saturday, Aug. 3, 2019, appeared in the crowded courtroom wearing a black protective vest over his orange-and-white prison-issued jumpsuit.
He stared straight ahead as the El Paso County District Attorney James Montoya read out the names of the nearly two dozen people killed in the border city massacre.
The judge told Crusius that his “name and hate will be forgotten,” while the names of his victims would live on.
“As you begin the rest of your life locked away, remember this: your mission failed,” Medrano said.
“You did not divide this city; you strengthened it. You did not silence its voice; you made it louder. You did not instill fear; you inspired unity. ... The community you tried to break has become a symbol of resilience, of love, of overcoming hate, of humanity, and of enduring in the face of evil.
“This community will always remember those whose lives you stole, their names, their stories, and their accomplishments, while you, your name, and your hate will be forgotten.”
Joe Spencer, a defense attorney in state and federal cases, said the plea agreement brings ‘judicial finality’ to the case and skirts protracted legal proceedings.
“The legal finality cannot erase the pain, nor does it fully answer the agonizing question, why,” Spencer said in court on April 21. “How could something so senseless happen here in our community?
“Over the past five years, extensive evaluations by numerous health care professionals have concluded that Patrick Crusius suffers from a severe, debilitating mental disease, schizoaffective disorder. This illness involves profound breaks with reality, including hallucinations and deeply entrenched delusional thinking.”
Crusius was 21 at the time police alleged he drove nine hours from his home in Dallas to El Paso to carry out the massacre.
El Paso County District Attorney James Montoya has said prosecutors did not impose the death penalty because most of the surviving victims and families of victims wanted the case to be over.
“The defendant was the author of a manifesto entitled ‘The Inconvenient Truth’ that was posted on [online message board] 8chan shortly before the shootings,” Montoya said on April 21. “The manifesto was authentic and authored by the defendant, and the offense was committed because the defendant possesses a bias or prejudice [against] a group of individuals identified by their race, color, national origin, or ancestry.”
After signing off on legal documents, a shackled Crusius was escorted out of court by law enforcement and his attorneys. He was to be confined in the institutional division of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.
Today and for the remainder of the week, the shooting survivors and family members are expected to give impact statements similar to the testimony recorded at a 3-day federal hearing in 2023.
At the July 7, 2023, federal hearing, Crusius pleaded guilty to hate crimes and weapons charges.
At the time, U.S. District Judge David Guaderrama sentenced Crusius to 90 consecutive life sentences and recommended that he be placed in a Colorado maximum security prison where he should receive treatment and counseling.
