(RepublicanDaily.org) – This past February, 24-year-old Patrick Crusius pleaded guilty to killing 23 individuals in an El Paso Walmart three years ago. On Wednesday, July 5, Crusius was handed 90 life sentences by Judge David Guaderrama, where the sentencing hearing has already gotten very tense.
Crusius avoided the death penalty by pleading guilty to the homicide charges and the 23 hate crime charges, acknowledging that he specifically targeted Hispanic individuals during his bloody August 3, 2020, rampage when he stormed into an El Paso Walmart and mowed people down with an AK-47 style automatic weapon loaded with devastating hollow point bullets.
Crusius displayed no emotional reaction while being sentenced to spend the rest of his natural life locked up. During the approximately three-quarter-of-an-hour sentencing hearing, Crusius sat expressionless while his lawyer Joe Spencer said Crusius understood the “harm” he’d done and argued that his client had committed the murder as a result of “severe mental illness.” The exact nature of this alleged mental health problem was not mentioned, although Spencer said that his client has a “broken brain.”
Crusius may still get the death penalty under state law, but the sentencing hearing is a necessary part of his deal at the federal level. Upon entering the sentencing hearing, there was crying and emotional reactions from those in attendance, including relatives and loved ones of many victims.
One young survivor named Genesis Davila told Crusius “I want you dead,” and added that he belongs in a “special place in Hell.” Davila lost her soccer coach, and her mom and dad were injured in Crusius’ targeted racial attack. Another victim’s relative named Thomas Hoffman said he was an “evil parasite.” Dean Reckard’s mother was killed by Crusius during the attack, and Reckard shouted at him, calling him a “coward.” Not everyone was equally full of anger, with Raul Moya, a man who lost his sibling in the attack saying that he prays “God forgives” Crusius for his horrific act.
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