As is nearly always the case in major unfolding events, today’s mass murders produced a lot of “breaking news” that turned out to be wrong 5 minutes, or an hour, or several hours later. Here’s what we now know.
Gregg Abbott, the Republican governor of Texas, said at a 4:30 PM PT press conference that the state “grieves” on “one of the most deadly days in the history of Texas.” He said, “Twenty innocent people from El Paso have lost their lives, and two dozen more are injured.” El Paso Police Chief Greg Allen put the wounded at 26.
Abbott praised law enforcement for its efforts in taking the 21-year-old shooter from Allen, Texas, into custody. He noted the outpouring of community support, including people standing in line to give blood. He urged people who are thinking about the horror of this slaughter to give their family members an extra hug.
El Paso Mayor Dee Cargo said “we will pray for and mourn” those who were killed. “United our community will heal,” he said.
The firearm used in the shooting was confirmed as a semi-automatic AK-47, a weapon originally designed by the Soviets in the late 1940s as one of the world’s first assault rifles. A surveillance photo has been released of an armed man looking very much like the person in police custody and carrying such a weapon loaded with a 30-round magazine through the doors of the Wal-Mart where the shootings took place.
What’s being called a “manifesto” posted anonymously on 8chan, a site that allows users to put up their own boards and post what they wish with very minimal attention from administrators, has been tentatively linked to the shooter. The three-page essay is a rancid mess of anti-immigrant, anti-Latino, white supremacist bigotry with hat tips to other white supremacists who have carried out mass murders of people in countries from Norway to New Zealand. One commentator on MSNBC called it race-based “digital hate.”
Later this evening, Dave Neiwert, Daily Kos’s resident expert on right-wing extremists, will be posting an analysis of the “manifesto.”
See Kochbuster’s post for more discussion here.
