Gunman in Texas mall shooting may have had neo-Nazi beliefs
By Jack Douglas, Marisa Iati, Brittany Shammas, Devlin Barrett, Justin Wm. Moyer, Molly Hennessy-Fiske and Perry Stein
Updated May 7, 2023 at 12:35 p.m. EDT|Published May 7, 2023 at 12:23 a.m. EDT
ALLEN, Tex. — The gunman who opened fire on an outlet mall in a Dallas suburb Saturday, killing at least eight people, was a man in his early 30s who may have had white supremacist or neo-Nazi beliefs, people familiar with the investigation said Sunday.
Mauricio Garcia, a local resident, had multiple weapons on him and in his nearby car, said people familiar with the investigation who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the ongoing probe.
Authorities have not released a motive, but a patch on his chest said “RWDS,” an acronym that stands for Right Wing Death Squad, according to people familiar with the investigation. The phrase is popular among right wing extremists, neo-Nazis and white supremacists, they said. In addition to the weapons found on his body, investigators found another five guns inside his car nearby, these people said.
The shooter also injured at least seven people before a police officer who was at the Allen, Tex., mall on an unrelated call fatally shot him at about 3:30 p.m., Allen Police Chief Brian Harvey said Saturday. Authorities believe that the gunman acted alone and that there were no further threats, Harvey said.
The assailant used an AR-15-style weapon and was wearing tactical gear, President Biden said Sunday. He was living in a Dallas-area hotel at the time of the shooting, according to the people familiar with the investigation. Since the gunman is dead, a major focus of investigators is whether anyone knew what he planned to do or helped him do it.
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The mass killing at the mall, which was crowded with shoppers on a Saturday afternoon, was the 22nd instance in the United States this year in which four or more people died by gunfire, according to a database of mass killings maintained by the Associated Press, USA Today and Northeastern University. At this time last year, there had been eight.
At least 115 people across the country have died in mass killings in 2023. That count does not include the shooters. Last year, there were 36 mass killings by gunfire — a record since 2006.
At the Allen outlet mall, all the stores were closed Sunday, and police blocked entrances to the center of the complex. The parking lot in the center of the mall was packed with cars, which shoppers and employees had not been allowed to retrieve by mid-Sunday.
In a statement, Allen Premium Outlets said it was “outraged by the violence that continues to plague our country,” and thanked the police response.
“We are thankful for the police officer’s heroic actions and for the support of all the first responders,” the statement read.
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Aerial footage of the scene, about 25 miles northeast of Dallas, showed what appeared to be bodies underneath white sheets on the ground outside an H&M outlet. Other videos posted on social media showed people fleeing through the mall’s parking lot and corridors.
A video that could not immediately be verified by The Washington Post showed what appeared to be the gunman after he was fatally shot outside a burger restaurant, wearing tactical gear with several magazines of ammunition on his chest. What appeared to be an AR-15-style semiautomatic rifle lay beside him.
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Last year, Texas had the most mass killings by gun of any state, with six. This year it has had three.
Two of the state’s mass killings in the past year have been high-profile: A gunman was arrested Tuesday after he killed five of his neighbors after they asked him to stop shooting his AR-15-style firearm near their home in Cleveland, Tex., north of Houston. And last May, the killing of 19 students and two teachers at an elementary school in Uvalde, Tex., put the state at the center of the debate about gun control.
In 2021, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recorded 4,613 firearms-related deaths in Texas. The state’s annual death toll from guns has increased steadily since 2014.
Led by Abbott, Texas has moved in recent years to loosen restrictions on firearms. In 2021, the state began allowing permitless carry so residents can carry handguns in public without a license. The state “does not specifically put restrictions on who can carry a long gun such as a rifle or shotgun,” according to a Texas government website.
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Self, the congressman, rebuked criticism of officials offering “thoughts and prayers” after shootings while opposing gun control legislation, saying on CNN that “people want to make this political, but prayers are important.”
“The immediate aftermath is not the time for politics,” he told The Washington Post. “We have long ago traded faith in God, which means civic action based on that faith, for faith in government.”
Instead of limiting gun rights, Self said local governments need to be free to better defend public spaces from armed criminals. He called proposals to restrict gun rights, such as raising the age at which people can purchase AR-15-style weapons, “a knee-jerk reaction that does not stop criminals.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2 ... ng-dallas/
Barrett, Stein, Iati, Moyer and Shammas reported from Washington, and Hennessy-Fiske from Houston. John D. Harden in Oakland, Alex Horton and Andrea Salcedo in Washington, and Bryan Pietsch and Niha Masih in Seoul contributed to this report.