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The man responsible for the horrific massacre of at least 19 people at a Walmart in El Paso Texas has been identified as a 21-year-old follower of white nationalist political figures including former Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, David Duke, according to a tweet from Anna Giaritelli, a reporter for the Washington Examiner.
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A law enforcement official in El Paso told me the Walmart shooter is in custody. Patrick Crusius of Dallas. Just turned 21 years old this week. pic.twitter.com/CEJh6rYij1
— Anna Giaritelli (@Anna_Giaritelli) August 3, 2019
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Giaritelli’s tweet includes a photo of the shooter in custody in the back of a police vehicle.
As of the time of this article, police have yet to officially confirm this information, but other reporters have confirmed that they have received the same information from officers at the scene.
The shooter’s white nationalist affiliation is obvious from what appears to be his Twitter page where he uses his handle includes his name (which does not need to be repeated) followed by”GUN- ANTI ABORTION- #MAGA #DUKE” and describes himself as an “amateur ghost hunter”, a “gamer”, and a “proud God loving Christian.”
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His page features a banner with a photo of Dylann Roof — the white supremacist murderer who shot up an African American church in Charleston, South Carolina in 2015 — with the slogan “I had to do it because somebody had [to].”
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The account which was started within the last month also included retweets from David Duke and Donald Trump, as well as a declaration of his love of guns and jokes about the Gilroy Garlic festival shooter.
Also circulating on Twitter is a purported manifesto penned by the suspect that has also yet to be confirmed as authentic.
The manifesto makes the shooter’s anti-immigrant and white nationalist views very plain by referencing a Hispanic invasion of Texas — ironic given that the state was originally Mexican territory.
It also includes a reference to the Christchurch New Zealand shooter who expressed his bigotry with a similar manifesto.
#walmartshooting #ElPaso Shooter's name and Manifesto pic.twitter.com/qXnej3kFaC
— mida (@midapirate) August 3, 2019
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If the manifesto and Twitter posts are confirmed as authentic, this is the second mass murder by a declared white supremacist in the last week.
With President Trump continuing to ratchet up racial and anti-immigrant tensions among his followers, only the most ardent Trump supporters will deny that the president’s hateful and divisive rhetoric is responsible for the surge in white nationalist violence.
This is a developing story and new details will be posted as more information becomes available.
Follow Vinnie Longobardo on Twitter.
Original reporting by Carlin Becker & Anna Giaritelli at The Washington Examiner.
