FORT WORTH, Texas — Mauricio Garcia, the 33-year-old gunman who killed eight people and injured seven when he opened fire with an AR-15 in a parking lot at an Allen mall, isn’t the only Texas mass shooter with ties to the Dallas suburb.
Patrick Crusius committed a mass shooting at a Walmart in El Paso on Aug. 3, 2019, killing 23 people and injuring 25 more.
Crusius drove 10 hours from the Dallas area to El Paso. He was a resident of Allen.
Garcia and Crusius displayed personal views of white supremacy before the shootings.
Garcia posted neo-Nazi content on a Russian social media site and other profiles, law enforcement officials believe.
Crusius published a manifesto online shortly before entering the Walmart and opening fire, stating in the post that immigration is “detrimental to the future of America.”
Garcia’s profile on Odnoklassniki — a social media network that’s popular in Russia — includes a date of birth that matches his and, according to media reports, features posts like one about the motel he was staying in before this month’s shooting.
The profile picture on the account is one of a smiling emoji styled to look like Hitler. An account must be created to view posts and other information on the profile, which The Fort Worth Star-Telegram was unable to do.
On other social media platforms, including Twitter, Garcia posted hate-filled content about women, Jews and Black people. He also shared pictures of his tattoos, showing a swastika on his chest and a Nazi SS on his upper right arm.
Garcia was Latino. He made a post with a cartoon image depicting a Latino child at a fork in a road, with one direction labeled “act black” and the other stating “act like a white supremacist.” He wrote in the post, “I think I’ll take my chances with the white supremacist.”
Photos of the Allen Premium Outlets mall were posted to his account on the Russian social media platform. The post showed that Garcia scouted the mall to see when it was busiest as he planned the shooting, according to screenshots.
Garcia was shot and killed by a police officer at the mall a few minutes after he began his attack.
While investigators say the motive for the shooting is still unknown, Texas DPS Regional Director Hank Sibley confirmed Garcia had “neo-Nazi ideation.”
Garcia’s Odnoklassniki profile contained many racist, antisemitic, anti-LGBTQ and anti-women posts, according to an analysis by researchers with the Anti-Defamation League.
According to his profile page, it was last logged into on May 6, 2023, the day of the shooting.
Most of the victims from the shooting were people of color, including a Korean-American family, a Latino family, a Black man, and two people from India who moved to Texas for work.
Dallas activist groups are demanding that authorities investigate the shooting as a racially-motivated hate crime.
While looking for a location to commit his mass shooting, Crusius stopped at the Walmart in El Paso because “he was hungry,” according to the former El Paso police chief, Greg Allen.
Police believe he ate and cased the store while inside without any of his weapons before later going back into the store and opening fire.
Crusius, then 21, told investigators that he identified as a white nationalist but had not thought of killing Mexicans or Hispanics until he read a manifesto referencing “The Great Replacement” — a white nationalist conspiracy theory arguing that nonwhite people are being brought into the U.S. to replace white voters to achieve a political agenda.
Crusius cited “The Great Replacement” in his own hate-filled manifesto. He posted it online shortly before he began shooting at the Walmart.
In his manifesto, he described his attack as a “response to the Hispanic invasion of Texas.”
Among the 23 he killed, nine were Mexican nationals, two of whom had become naturalized American citizens.
The 2,300-word manifesto written by Crusius had sections titled “political reasons,” “economic reasons,” and “personal reasons and thoughts.”
He started the manifesto by writing, “I support the Christchurch shooter,” referencing a gunman who killed 51 people at mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, in March 2019. That gunman also referenced “The Great Replacement” theory in a manifesto he wrote.
Crusius went on to make statements such as, “the process of mass immigration and citizenship can be greatly reduced” and “it makes no sense to keep on letting millions of illegal or legal immigrants flood into the United States,” as he blamed immigration for political degradation, unemployment, and the “destruction” of the environment.
“The next logical step is to decrease the number of people in America using resources,” he wrote.
He made racist comments in the manifesto including, “I can’t bring myself to kill my fellow Americans… Even if they are shameless race mixers” and “I am against race mixing because it destroys genetic diversity and creates identity problems.”
He ended the manifesto with, “This is just the beginning of the fight for America and Europe. I am honored to head the fight to reclaim my country from destruction” referencing his statement he wrote in the beginning: “natives didn’t take the invasion of the Europeans seriously.”
Crusius pleaded guilty to various hate crimes and weapons charges. He will be sentenced June 30 and is expected to receive 90 consecutive life sentences.
According to Dallas activists, mass murders and crimes such as the May 6 shooting are examples of the growing presence of racist violence, extremism, and terrorism in North Texas.
AAPI community groups in Dallas such as the Dallas Asian American Historical Society believe it’s not an accident that four Asian people were killed at the Allen Premium Outlets. They said that Asians in the area live in fear.
While predominantly white, 9.6% of Allen’s population is Black, 19.2% is Asian, and 11.2% is Hispanic or Latino, according to the latest data from the United States Census Bureau.
Of the more than 1,000 people charged with crimes in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, at least 74 people were from Texas and 28 from North Texas.
Several of these North Texans were arrested on charges of assault of an officer, disorderly conduct, and physical violence.
Among the Texans arrested in connection to the insurrection, 11 of them were found to have ties to extremist groups such as the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, and Three Percenters.
In April, a 22-year-old Burleson man, Noah Robert Calderon, was charged after weapons and a homemade bomb were found in his home.
His Burleson neighborhood was evacuated by police “out of an abundance of caution” while authorities worked to safely dispose of the contents.
No one was hurt. But the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Texas said Calderon could have been planning a mass casualty attack.
Calderon displayed “several indicators of potential violence,” was fascinated with mass shootings, weapons, and white supremacy, and idolized the shooters in the Columbine High School attack, federal authorities said in a news release.
The FBI received a tip in March that Calderon had detonated a homemade bomb in his neighborhood. FBI agents reviewed Calderon’s Google account and found searches about mass shooters, how to make bombs including information about where bombs were placed in the Columbine shooting, and names of North Texas public schools.
A handwritten document titled “manifesto” was also found in Calderon’s room.
If found guilty, he could spend up to 10 years in federal prison.
In addition to a demand to investigate the May 6 shooting as a hate crime, community leaders and activists have demanded that the Texas Legislature take action on gun reform.
At a vigil held for the Allen shooting victims, Mohammed Farshori, vice chair of the Asian Chamber of Texas, said elected officials “are no longer able to serve the public or serve our interests” and called on people to vote in order to make those officials “irrelevant.”
Several speakers at the vigil mentioned that they were repeating words and demands that have been said at several vigils held for other shootings across the U.S.
