By Luis De Jesus
25 Sep 2023, 16:27 PM EDT
Patrick Crusius, who murdered 23 people at a Walmart in the city of El Paso, in the southern state of Texas, will have to pay more than $5 million to the victims’ families. The amount of money was approved by US District Judge David Guaderrama as restitution.
The young man received a sentence of 90 continuous life sentences last July for that attack against Hispanics and immigrants, after he pleaded guilty in February to 90 federal charges of murder and hate crimes, NBC published.
He also faces another trial in a Texas court, for the same shooting, which could begin in 2024 or 2025 and which would conclude with the death penalty.
In the sentencing phase of the trial, 36 relatives of the victims testified in federal court in El Paso. “I used to be a happy and normal teenager, until a coward chose to use violence against innocents,” said a young survivor of the massacre, as quoted by the EFE news agency.
Patrick Crusius, then 21 years old, shot on August 3, 2019 with an automatic rifle at a Walmart in El Paso and attacked the people who were there. He caused the largest massacre in the United States directed against Latinos.
That same day, he turned himself in to police authorities and confessed that he chose that store because it is located near the United States border with Mexico, which is why many Latin customers usually frequent it. According to trial documentation, he first visited the store without carrying weapons and returned equipped with sound protectors, plastic glasses and the rifle, with which he fired wildly.
He also acknowledged having made an online publication minutes before the massacre in which he complained about a “Hispanic invasion” in the United States and “cultural and ethnic substitution.”
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