On Aug 3, 2019 one of the deadliest mass shootings in the history of the United States took place, leaving 22 people dead and 26 injured. This all occurred in a Walmart located in El Paso Tx. The suspect behind all of this is 21-year old Patrick Crusius, he was from the Dallas area. Luckily he was arrested after the attack and he said to the authorities, “I am the shooter.” Patrick was later indicted on a grand capital murder charge.
Over 80% of the El Paso population is Hispanic and this is the main reason that the massacre took place where it did. Crusius had spoken about a “Hispanic invasion in Texas.” It is believed that minutes before the attack Patrick published an anti-immigrant document talking about how he doesn’t agree with “race-mixing” and thinks Hispanics should go back from where they came from. Some of the things he mentioned even reflect president Trump’s ideas. The manifesto states ” Hispanics will take control of the local and state government of my beloved Texas, changing policy to better suit their needs.”
How will this event impact us for years to come and will anything change? Already Walmart has requested customers to open carry guns into its CVS, Walgreens, and Aldi is following Walmarts footsteps and are asking customers to not use firearms in the store. Shooting attacks have not yet decreased, just one day later after the attack a gunman killed 9 people in Ohio.
I asked students from Cal High what they believed would come from this tragic event and what can possibly be done to prevent something like this from happening again.
Sissel Pliego stated “With our current president, Donald Trump there will not be a lot of change if anything the situation might worsen. Changing laws about who is eligible to obtain a gun will not stop people from getting a gun, it’s always possible to steal a weapon or get it from someone else but I do support Walmart for Banning people to carry weapons around their store which used to be allowed.”
Sophomore AJ Alpert said “When we look back to today we will remember this as the time when we did nothing, if this recent event wasn’t bad enough to make us want to make changes than what will? There need to be changes in the law that better determine who can get a weapon and who can’t, as well as the number of bullets a person gets to use in a lifetime, which needs to be administered. To prevent anything like this from happening again there should be better follow up’s on case reports by the police, Patrick had already been reported to the police and the effect of the tragedy could have been prevented altogether.”