20 Dead In Texas, 9 In Ohio As Mass Shootings Rock U.S.

Two mass shootings within a day of each other on the U.S. mainland have rippled through the country.

The first, which left 20 people dead and another 26 injured, occurred in El Paso Texas on Saturday morning when the suspect, described as a 21-year-old white male from Allen, Texas, opened fire on a crowd of shoppers in a Walmart store.

The suspect was taken into custody without incident, El Paso Police Chief Greg Allen said at a news conference. Chief Allen added that authorities would be looking into the shooting as a possible hate crime in addition to exploring capital murder charges.

According to the Wall Street Journal, law-enforcement said the suspect has been identified as Patrick Crusius of suburban Dallas, a drive of more than nine hours east from El Paso. Chief Allen told reporters that investigators would be scrutinizing an online manifesto purportedly written by the suspect. The anti-immigrant writing described a potential mass shooting as a response to an “invasion of Texas” by Hispanic immigrants, according to a law-enforcement official. 

The Ohio shooting, which occurred in the wee hours of Sunday morning, left 9 people dead and 26 others injured. While the El Paso, Texas shooter was still alive and in custody, the Ohio shooter was dead, police said.

According to Ohio police, the shooting began at 1 a.m. The Day Ohio Police Department added in a tweet that officers were “in the immediate vicinity when this shooting began and we were able to respond and put an end to it quickly.” 

Dayton Mayor Nan Whaley said during a press conference Sunday morning that the shooter was wearing body armor and had “a .223 caliber high-capacity gun, with magazines and he had additional magazines.”

She added that first responders neutralized the shooter in “under a minute.” 

According to WSJ, Assistant Police Chief Matt Carper said at an earlier press conference, “As bad as this has been, it could have been much, much worse.”

The shooting occurred in the Oregon District, police said, a neighborhood of bars and restaurants that is popular on weekend nights.

The shooter was killed by multiple police officers, Mr. Carper said.

“We’re working on identifying the suspect to see what the possible motivation might have been,” he said.

Authorities said they would provide more info on shooter at a later time.

The shooting started in the 400 block of East Fifth Street, and all happened outside, in an area where officers patrol regularly, and those who were on patrol responded, he added.

El Paso, Texas shooting: Too early to ascribe motive

El Paso, a city of 680,000 in western Texas that is more than 80 percent Hispanic, is near one of the busiest border crossings between the U.S. and Mexico, according to WSJ. The Walmart where the shooting occurred is just a few miles from the border.

At a news conference, the Federal Bureau of Investigation said it was too soon to ascribe a motive to the shooting.

But Rep. Veronica Escobar, a Democrat who represents El Paso in Congress, said the document, if verified, was deeply worrisome. 

“This is someone who came from outside of our community to do us harm,” she said. “A community that has shown nothing but generosity and kindness to the least among us, those people arriving at America’s front door.”