Here’s what you need to know:
- El Paso is punctured by the ‘unfounded hatred’ that stole 22 lives.
- The Dayton gunman had a history of threatening women, his friends say.
- The police say the suspect in El Paso has not shown any remorse.
- President Trump is expected to visit Dayton and El Paso on Wednesday.
- The authorities face a challenge in how to combat domestic terrorism.
El Paso is punctured by the ‘unfounded hatred’ that stole 22 lives.
The gut punch of shock and horror that immediately followed the massacre in El Paso has morphed into a new kind of grief. It is a jumble of emotion — sadness, anger, wrestling with loss and, now a few days into this painful new reality, exhaustion.
“It’s too hard right now,” Edie Hallberg, her eyes weary, said of reckoning with the death of her mother, Angelina Englisbee, 86, who was killed in the shooting.
After days of waiting and uncertainty, El Paso now knows the names of the 22 people who were killed when a gunman stormed into a Walmart and opened fire on Saturday, apparently targeting Mexicans and Mexican-Americans, having written a manifesto sounding his alarm over what he called an “invasion of Hispanics,” the authorities said.
[White extremist ideology has been linked to at least four of the 10 deadliest active-shooter episodes in recent years.]
The death toll increased as two who were wounded died, the police said.
At first, the vigils in El Paso mourned a general sense of loss, knowing that lives had been claimed in what investigators described as a hate-filled rampage and that a blanket of safety this city has cherished had frayed. But by Monday, the nature of gatherings shifted, as they became more about pain over the individuals who had been killed.
Hundreds filled the stadium at Horizon High School just outside El Paso for a memorial for Javier Rodriguez, who was 15.
“In a time like this, I can’t help but feel angry that this young man was robbed of his potential, robbed of his future and robbed of his life because of someone’s unfounded hatred,” said Adrian Barrios, who had taught Javier in middle school. “However, I know that if I truly want to pay tribute to Javier’s life, anger has no place in honoring his memory.”
[The victims in El Paso also included the parents of a 2-month-old child.]
The Dayton gunman had a history of threatening women, his friends say.
The police in Dayton, Ohio, were still trying to determine what motivated a gunman there to kill his sister and eight others, but people who grew up with him were conducting a different kind of investigation, looking back for any signs that might have foreshadowed his explosion of violence.
For more than a few, and for women in particular, these signs were not hard to find.
“I don’t want to say I saw it coming,” said Mika Carpenter, 24, who met the gunman, Connor Betts, 24, at a summer camp when they were both 13. “But if it was going to be anybody it was going to be him.”
Like others who knew Mr. Betts as a teenager, Ms. Carpenter recalled his dark and often violent jokes, including riffs about “bodily harm” that led many to keep their distance.
“He was kind of hateful to women because they didn’t want to date him,” she said. Still, she became friends with him because, she said, she saw that he had a good side.
Mr. Betts often expressed concerns to her about having dark thoughts, she said.
“I remember specifically him talking about being scared of the thoughts that he had, being scared that he had violent thoughts,” said Ms. Carpenter, who cut off contact with him in 2013 after he lashed out at her during an online chat. “He knew it wasn’t normal.”
The police in Dayton were quick to caution on Monday that much about the shooting early Sunday morning was still unknown. There was still no clear motive, nor an understanding of how three people — Mr. Betts, his sister and a mutual friend — all went out together and one ended up shooting the other two. The friend, who has not been named by the police, was shot in his lower torso but survived; the sister, Megan Betts, 22, was killed.
[“It seems to just defy believability that he would shoot his own sister,” Dayton’s police chief said of the gunman.]
The police say the suspect in El Paso has not shown any remorse.
Investigators, after extensive interviews with the suspect, are now piecing together more about the hours before the attack.
In a news conference on Monday, Chief Greg Allen of the El Paso Police Department said it took the gunman more than 10 hours to reach the city after leaving Allen, Tex., where he lived. He got lost in a neighborhood as soon as he arrived, the chief said.
Chief Allen said that the suspect, identified as Patrick W. Crusius, 21, had cooperated with investigators. But, he added, he had not shown any remorse. Instead, Chief Allen said, “he appears to be in a state of shock and confusion.”
“We’re dealing with a tragedy with 22 people who have perished by an evil, hateful act of a white supremacist that has no bearing or no belonging in El Paso,” Mayor Dee Margo said at the Monday news conference. “It was not done by an El Pasoan. No El Pasoan would ever do this. I don’t know how we deal with evil. I don’t have a textbook for dealing with evil, other than the Bible.”
President Trump is expected to visit Dayton and El Paso on Wednesday.
The politics surrounding the shootings gathered more attention, especially as Mr. Trump planned to visit El Paso on Wednesday, as well as Dayton. But Mr. Margo of El Paso stressed that the enormity of the shooting was something that loomed far larger than politics, and that it would take time for the city, and for him, to grapple with what happened.
He said that Mr. Trump had called him, and “it was what I would consider a true presidential call to a community suffering greatly.”
Still, Mr. Margo, a Republican, stressed a specific point: He said he did not invite the president.
“The president can go anywhere he wants,” Mr. Margo said. “He’s president of the United States. I will greet him accordingly.”
Mr. Trump on Monday denounced white supremacy in the wake of the twin mass shootings, and citing the threat of “racist hate,” he summoned the nation to address what he called a link between the recent carnage and violent video games, mental illness and internet bigotry.
But he stopped well short of endorsing the kind of broad gun control measures that activists, Democrats and some Republicans have sought for years, including tougher background checks for gun buyers and the banning of some weapons and accessories such as high-capacity magazines.
And while he warned of “the perils of the internet and social media,” he offered no recognition of his own use of those platforms to promote his brand of divisive politics.
[Read more about Mr. Trump’s comments on the shootings here.]
The authorities face a challenge in how to combat domestic terrorism.
On Monday, Mr. Trump pledged to give federal law enforcement authorities “whatever they need” to combat domestic terrorism. The motive for the Dayton attack remains unknown. But even before the shootings, officials said that preventing attacks from white supremacists and nationalists would require adopting the same type of broad and aggressive approach used to battle international extremism.
“We need to catch them and incarcerate them before they act on their plans,” Rod Rosenstein, the former deputy attorney general, said in an email interview. “We need to be proactive by identifying and disrupting potential terrorists before they strike, and we can accomplish that by monitoring terrorist propaganda and communications.”
Under current federal law, that is difficult. Federal officials have broad powers to disrupt foreign terrorist plots, given to them as part of the Patriot Act passed after the 2001 attacks. They can take preventive action, for example, by wiretapping or using an undercover online persona to talk to people anonymously in chat rooms to search for jihadis.
But domestically, federal officials have far fewer options. A federal statute defines domestic terrorism but carries no penalties. The First Amendment, which protects freedom of speech, makes stopping terrorist acts committed by Americans before they happen more challenging. No government agency is responsible for designating domestic terrorism organizations. And individuals who are considered domestic terrorists are charged under laws governing hate crimes, guns and conspiracy, not terrorism.
[Read more about the challenges of tackling domestic terrorism here.]
Rick Rojas reported from El Paso and Campbell Robertson from Dayton, Ohio. Reporting was contributed by Mitch Smith from Dayton, Simon Romero reported from El Paso, Manny Fernandez from Houston, Jose A. Del Real from Los Angeles, Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs and Timothy Williams from New York, and Sabrina Tavernise, Katie Benner, Matt Apuzzo, Maggie Haberman, Michael Crowley and Nicole Perlroth from Washington.
2019-08-06 13:14:18Z
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "El Paso and Dayton Mass Shootings: Live Updates - The New York Times"
Post a Comment