Texas Walmart shooter pleads guilty to 90 federal hate crime charges News
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Texas Walmart shooter pleads guilty to 90 federal hate crime charges

Patrick Wood Crusius, the Texas man indicted in the 2019 Walmart mass shooting, Wednesday pleaded guilty to 90 federal hate crime and firearm violations. The US Department of Justice (DOJ) announced the plea agreement after federal prosecutors declined to seek the death penalty against Crusius. He faces 90 consecutive life sentences; one life sentence for each count.

Crusius pleaded guilty to 45 counts of federal hate crimes in violation of the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act. The act criminalizes, “willfully causing bodily injury (or attempting to do so with fire, firearm, or other dangerous weapon) when the crime was committed because of the actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin of any person.” He also pleaded guilty to 23 counts of using a firearm during an act of violence resulting in death and 22 counts of using a firearm in relation to a crime of violence.

In the indictment, prosecutors laid out substantial evidence that Crusius targeted individuals of perceived Hispanic origin. In addition to traveling overnight to a predominantly Hispanic area with a semi-automatic rife and 1,000 rounds of ammunition, he uploaded a white nationalist manifesto to the internet shortly before the shooting took place. Crusius drafted the document titled, “The Inconvenient Truth.” In the document he stated, “this attack is a response to the Hispanic invasion of Texas.”

Crusius carried out the shooting on August 3, 2019, killed 23 individuals and injured 22 individuals. The attack is one of many recent mass shootings targeting minority populations. In 2022, a white man carried out a shooting at a Tops Market in Buffalo, attacking the majority Black shopping center. Additionally, another 2022 shooting in Colorado Springs at Club Q specifically targeted the LGBTQ community. As a result, President Biden has urged congress to pass an assault weapon ban.

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