Texas law enforcement is investigating a hate-filled manifesto that appeared online shortly before a gunman fired at a supermarket parking lot in El Paso on Saturday.
Police arrested the suspected gunman, 21-year-old Patrick Crusius, on Saturday after he allegedly killed 20 people in a mass shooting.
Now they believe he may have published a manifesto raving against a so-called “Hispanic invasion of Texas.”
El Paso Police Chief Greg Allen told the Washington Post that the shooting “has a nexus to a hate crime.”
The Post also reported that El Paso Sheriff Richard Wiles denounced in a Facebook post the El Paso shooting as a massacre motivated by white supremacy.
“This Anglo man came here to kill Hispanics,” he wrote. “I’m outraged and you should be too. This entire nation should be outraged. In this day and age, with all the serious issues we face, we are still confronted with people who will kill another for the sole reason of the color of their skin.”
If Crusius is confirmed to be the writer of the new manifesto, he wouldn’t be the first white nationalist to have done so before committing a mass shooting.
Crusius’ alleged screed referenced the manifesto warning of “white genocide” that was penned by the Australian white nationalist who killed 51 people in a series of shootings at several mosques in New Zealand several months ago.
The gunman responsible for the synagogue shooting in Southern California in April also wrote a manifesto praising the New Zealand shootings and the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting that left 11 dead last year.
