The gunman who killed 23 people and injured 22 others in an El Paso Walmart shooting believed he was acting under the direction of President Donald Trump, his defense attorney revealed.
Patrick Crusius, 26, is expected to plead guilty later this month to capital murder and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon for the 2019 mass shooting.
"He thought he had to stop the invasion because that's what his president was telling him, which is just not rational," defense lawyer Joe Spencer told El Paso Matters.
State prosecutors recently dropped the death penalty, meaning Crusius will receive a life sentence without parole. He has already been sentenced to 90 consecutive life terms for federal hate crime and weapons charges.
According to Spencer, his client suffered from longstanding mental illness, including schizo-affective disorder, and was deeply immersed in extremist white nationalist forums like 4Chan and 8Chan leading up to the attack.
A pivotal moment in Crusius' radicalization, his attorney said, came in May 2019 when he watched footage of a Trump rally in Panama City Beach, Florida. During the event, Trump described migrants at the border as an "invasion" and, when an audience member shouted "Shoot them," as the crowd laughed.
"Only in the Panhandle you can get away with that statement," a smiling Trump responded.
The next month, Crusius purchased a semiautomatic rifle, and by August 3, 2019, he had driven 10 hours from Allen, Texas, to El Paso, where he carried out the attack.
"When you're a person with a 'broken brain' hearing comments like those from Trump, you think you're getting direction from your commander in chief that you've got to stop the invasion," Spencer explained.
The attorney even considered subpoenaing Trump during the case, but Crusius strongly opposed the idea. While his manifesto mentions Trump, Crusius denied his influence over the crime.
"I know that the media will probably call me a white supremacist anyway and blame Trump's rhetoric," read the manifesto, which Spencer suspects was mostly copied from other texts. "The media is infamous for fake news."
A central theme in Crusius' manifesto was the "great replacement theory," which psychology professor Christine Reyna of DePaul University spoke to El Paso Matters about. Reyna, who studies white nationalism, warned that the theory's holding that malevolent entities are bringing immigrants to the US to replace white people can inspire radicalized individuals to violence.
"When you dehumanize the target, what you do is you exclude them from consideration. They do not deserve your moral care. And then, you harm them as existential threats," she said.
"He's one of the big heroes now...one of the icons," Reyna said, noting that white nationalist forums revere Crusius, creating a dangerous cycle of radicalization that could inspire future attacks.
The pardons granted to all participants in the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol have further emboldened individuals who believe they are committing violence on Trump's behalf. However, Trump did condemn the El Paso shooting in an official statement within days of the attack.
Spencer made it clear that Trump's rhetoric did not excuse Crusius' crimes, but he held the former president partially responsible for the shooting.
"Words matter," Spencer said. "When you're the president of the United States, you should be very careful how your words are received—not only by rational people, but also by those who are not."
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