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international relations and national security

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Police believe the El Paso shooter targeted Latinos. These are the victims' stories | CNN

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The 22 victims of the Walmart shooting were parents, grandparents and spouses from both sides of the US-Mexico border whose lives were cut short in one of America's most familiar places.

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Everything We Know About the El Paso Walmart Massacre

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More details have emerged about the attack, its victims, and the hate-filled domestic terrorist who murdered 22 people and injured another 26 on Saturday morning.

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Everything We Know About the Dayton Mass Shooting

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Nine people were killed and 27 were injured after a gunman opened fire outside a bar early Sunday morning in Dayton, Ohio's Oregon District. The shooter was killed by police officers responding to the attack.

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photos: deadly shootings in el paso and dayton

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Photos: Deadly shootings in El Paso and Dayton

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Mass shootings in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, left dozens of people dead this weekend. The shootings happened just hours apart.

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22 people were killed and dozens injured in a shooting in a Walmart and parking lot near an El Paso, Texas shopping mall Saturday.

The white male suspect has been identified as Patrick Crusius, 21. He was taken into custody without incident.

At least 22 people were hospitalized, including one who died; nine were in critical but stable condition; one patient is 4 months old.

Prosecutors are pursuing a civil rights hate crime investigation and domestic terrorism charges.

More details of what we know about the victims of the El Paso shooting.

Prosecutors in El Paso, Texas, will seek the death penalty for the man suspected of killing 20 people and injuring more than two dozen others. U.S. Attorney John Bash said they will pursue a criminal investigation, a civil rights hate crime investigation and "domestic terrorism" charges against the suspect, who was identified as 21-year-old Patrick Crusius.

El Paso Police Chief Greg Allen said Crusius purchased his weapon legally. He said Crusius was being cooperative and "forthcoming with information" to investigators. The Associated Press reports Crusius is from Allen, Texas, which is a nearly 10-hour drive from El Paso.

The attack targeted a Walmart and did not spread to other nearby shopping areas, El Paso police Sgt. Robert Gomez said, adding that most victims were inside the store. The shopping area is about 5 miles from the main border checkpoint with Ciudad Juárez, Mexico.

By Sunday evening, all bodies had been removed from the store and its parking lot, police said.

"The scene was a horrific one," said Allen, adding that many of the people who were hurt had life-threatening injuries.

Emotional El Paso shooting survivor shares her story

In the hours following the attack, there was another mass shooting across the country in Dayton, Ohio. Police said nine people were killed by a gunman who was shot to death by responding officers.

Officials have referenced a document allegedly left behind by Crusius, and said the shooting may have a "nexus" to a hate crime. The writer of the document denounces the increasing Hispanic population of Texas and gives that as a reason for his actions.

The FBI issued a statement late Sunday saying, "The attack in El Paso, Texas, underscores the continued threat posed by domestic violent extremists and perpetrators of hate crimes. The FBI is supporting its state and local partners in Texas through investigative, intelligence, and technical assistance. The El Paso investigation is also being supported by the FBI's Domestic Terrorism-Hate Crimes Fusion Cell. ... The FBI remains concerned that U.S.-based domestic violent extremists could become inspired by these and previous high-profile attacks to engage in similar acts of violence. The FBI asks the American public to report to law enforcement any suspicious activity that is observed either in person or online."

Ryan Mielke, a spokesman for University Medical Center of El Paso, said 15 of the injured were brought to the hospital with injuries, including one who died. Two of the injured were children who were transferred to El Paso Children's Hospital, he said. The children sustained non life-threatening injuries and were discharged Sunday. Ten patients remain at UMC.

Eleven other victims ages 35 to 82 were being treated at Del Sol Medical Center, hospital spokesman Victor Guerrero said.

A U.S. soldier stationed at nearby Fort Bliss was at the mall when the shooting unfolded. Glendon Oakley said that, as soon as heard two gunshots, he took the threat seriously.

"We run towards Dillard's, and it's like a play pen over there. I see a whole bunch of kids like, without their parents running around screaming and crying, so I grab as many as possible," Oakley told CBS affiliate WMAZ-TV.

"I try to get a couple of other people too, you know, grab other kids, but parents are so worried about themselves, they're gone," Oakley said. "I'm thinking if I had a child, what would I want somebody else to do."

Walmart released a statement, saying it was working with law enforcement and "praying for the victims, the community & our associates, as well as the first responders."

Trump reacts to deadly mass shootings in El Paso and Dayton

U.S. Rep. Veronica Escobar, who represents El Paso, said on Twitter she was "heartbroken" by the incident and was monitoring the situation. Her predecessor, presidential candidate and former Texas congressman Beto O'Rourke, appeared shaken as he spoke at a candidate forum in Las Vegas on Saturday shortly after news of the shooting in his hometown was reported.

O'Rourke said he had called his wife before taking the stage and said the shooting shatters "any illusion that we have that progress is inevitable" on tackling gun violence. The Democrat said he'd heard early reports that the shooter might have had a military-style weapon, saying we need to "keep that (expletive) on the battlefield and do not bring it into our communities."

"We have to find some reason for optimism and hope or else we consign ourselves to a future where nearly 40,000 people are year will lose their lives to gun violence and I cannot accept that," O'Rourke said.

Beto O'Rourke responds to mall shooting in El Paso, TX

More stories from El Paso

Pat Milton contributed to this report.

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El Paso shooting: Prosecutors to seek death penalty for "domestic terrorism"

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22 people were killed and dozens injured in a shooting in a Walmart and parking lot near an El Paso, Texas shopping mall Saturday. The white male suspect has been identified as Patrick Crusius, 21. He was taken into custody without incident.

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El Paso shooting labelled 'domestic terrorism' case

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The suspect in the mass shooting in El Paso, Texas earlier this month has reportedly been placed on suicide watch.

Patrick Wood Crusius, 21, has been under close guard since Monday, when medical staff at the county jail recommended that he be more closely monitored, the El Paso Times reports. He was placed in a single jail cell and was separated from other inmates.

Crusius has been in custody since Aug. 3 and is being held without bond, the Times noted.

The suspected gunman, who allegedly killed 20 people and wounded 26 others when he opened fire at a Walmart, was charged with capital murder on Aug. 4. Federal authorities are treating the shooting as a case of domestic terrorism and are seeking federal hate crime and firearm charges.

El Paso County District Attorney Jaime Esparza has also said his office would seek the death penalty for Crusius, who is alleged to have written a white nationalist manifesto.

The suspect reportedly confessed to carrying out the attack when he surrendered to law enforcement, saying "I'm the shooter" and telling police he was targeting "Mexicans."

Police said Crusius has been cooperating with authorities since his arrest. FBI officials said they have served three search warrants in the Dallas area, where the suspect lived.

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El Paso shooting suspect on suicide watch

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The suspect in the mass shooting in El Paso, Texas earlier this month has reportedly been placed on suicide watch. Patrick Wood Crusius, 21, has been under close guard since Monday, when medical staff at the county jail recommended that he be more closely monitored, the El Paso Times reports.

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https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-gave-thumbs-up-photo-baby-orphaned-el-paso-shooting-2019-8

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It's no wonder that the US attorney for the Western District of Texas said Sunday that the man who drove 600 miles to kill 22 people in the ethnically diverse city of El Paso, Texas, was being treated as a domestic terrorist. But it's a largely hollow statement: The shooter won't be charged as a domestic terrorist.

For many reasons, domestic terrorism in the United States - largely committed by people ideologically tied to white nationalism and white supremacy - is viewed differently from the international variety and has no specific penalties under the law. This fact has been the source of anger on the left for years - after the Oklahoma City bombings, for example - but some prominent conservatives have now coalesced around the same thought.

Even President Donald Trump described the El Paso shootings as terror, saying, "We have asked the FBI to identify all further resources they need to investigate and disrupt hate crimes and domestic terrorism, whatever they need." And commentators across the political spectrum seem more willing than ever to view white nationalist terrorism as what it is.

As Townhall political editor Guy Benson wrote of the shooter, "He is the latest in a string of mostly young white men who have become radicalized by extremist communities, often online, then unleash their poisonous anger on innocents. They maim and kill in the name of a twisted ethno-political agenda. This is, by definition, terrorism. It must be treated as such by law enforcement at every level of government."

But the public outcry is clashing with how the FBI actually handles violence motivated by white nationalism. Unlike disrupting foreign terrorist plots - an effort the bureau has actively funded and focused on since the 9/11 terror attacks - potential domestic threats have received far fewer resources. And the diffuse nature of the white nationalist movement in the United States has made it even more challenging for those efforts that do exist - as do the constitutional protections available to every American, including white nationalists.

For his part, FBI Director Christopher Wray has responded to the criticism by threading a careful line: noting the approximately 100 arrests law enforcement has made this year centered on domestic terror, but also making clear that agents "don't investigate ideology, no matter how repugnant."

There is a certain irony to the FBI and Justice Department's claims that either organization avoids "investigating ideology," given their collective history. But their argument nonetheless shows that if critics of the FBI's efforts to stop white nationalist terror want real change, it'll take more than words. And the results might be more constitutionally and practically fraught than observers expect.

Critics to the FBI: it's time to take action on white nationalist terror

2020 Democrats and many others have called for the FBI to do more to combat the threat of white nationalist terror.

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, for example, released a 10-point plan on Tuesday that called for "a whole-of-government strategy to confront white supremacy as a distinct and discrete terrorist threat to America," and noted that a lack of resources was preventing the US government from doing what it can to "identify, track, and publicly report on white nationalist activity." And South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg released his plan on Monday, which says he would "empower law enforcement - including the FBI, state and local authorities - with greater resources for preventing domestic terrorist attacks before they occur."

It's true that resources to fight white nationalist extremism appear to have dwindled since the 1990s, in reaction to the 9/11 terrorist attacks (which caused intelligence agencies to refocus on international terror). The shift may also be because of an outcry from conservatives over a 2009 Department of Homeland Security report on "right-wing extremism." Then-House Minority Leader John Boehner decried the report's use of "terrorist," saying it had been applied to "American citizens who disagree with the direction Washington Democrats are taking our nation."

Amy Spitalnick, the executive director of Integrity First for America, the group supporting lawsuits filed against the organizers of the deadly Unite the Right rally in 2017, told me that the funding cuts under Trump to stop domestic terror attacks had also included cuts to programs aimed at rehabilitating white nationalists.

"Department of Justice civil rights investigations are down 60 percent over the last few years," she said. "The Department of Homeland Security's domestic terror intelligence unit was cut; and just before Charlottesville, DHS cut funding for anti-extremism programs like Life After Hate."

Funding difficulties are just part of the problem. David Gomez, who worked in the FBI for more than 25 years and managed several joint terrorism task forces in the Pacific Northwest, told me that while agencies work to prevent international terrorism, "domestic terrorism cases are handled in a primarily reactive manner, i.e., after the crime occurs." For example, the mass shooting at the Gilroy Garlic Festival in California is now under a domestic terrorism investigation, an announcement made weeks after the shooting took place and claimed the lives of three people, including two children.

Then there's the problem of how white nationalist terror is classified by the government. Michael German, a fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice and a former FBI special agent who focused on domestic terrorism, said part of the problem is that white nationalists who commit violent acts are often charged under statutes that govern gangs and organized crime. Those crimes receive severe penalties, but "the charges aren't what matters," German said. "What matters is that terrorism is the FBI's No. 1 priority and violent crimes or gang crimes are the sixth priority. So these cases receive less resources."

He added that the violent acts associated with white nationalist terrorists aren't counted in statistics kept on terror, obscuring, in German's view, the "scope of white supremacist violence and criminal activity" in America.

The FBI says it's not so simple

But the FBI has argued that the offenders who tend to commit acts of terror linked to white nationalism are especially difficult to track before they strike. While attacks by specific terrorist organizations are often coordinated within groups that could be infiltrated by informants, white nationalist attacks are largely taken upon by individuals who don't coordinate their actions.

As FBI Assistant Director Michael McGarrity told the House Homeland Security Committee in May, "We are most concerned about lone offenders, primarily using firearms, as these lone offenders represent the dominant trend for lethal domestic terrorists. Frequently, these individuals act without a clear group affiliation or guidance, making them challenging to identify, investigate and disrupt."

J.M. Berger, a violent ideologies researcher and the author of Extremism, told me, "The diffuse nature of the movement presents a big challenge. While there are some clusters of activity, such as Atomwaffen Division, the attacks we've seen over the last year don't appear to emanate from a specific organization."

Because so much radicalizing activity takes place online, where many different sources can easily share material and propaganda with thousands of people, clamping down on specific networks or individuals to prevent attacks is particularly difficult. "Several recent attacks have had an online locus to 8chan," Berger said. "But the nature of the anonymous posting structure and extreme culture there makes (or made) it pretty a challenging space for investigative or preventative work."

Then there's the question of what the FBI says it is legally allowed to do.

Unlike the fight to stop international terror - the terrorist group ISIS, for example - law enforcement in the United States faces specific constraints when battling white nationalist terror domestically.

It's not against federal law to join a white supremacist or white nationalist organization, or to espouse white nationalist viewpoints. Constitutionally, the right to associate freely with white nationalist individuals or groups in either physical or online spaces is protected. David Gomez told me, "In the FBI, no domestic terrorism case can be opened based solely on constitutionally protected free speech."

As BuzzFeed News reporter Zoe Tillman points out, laws that bar American citizens from assisting foreign terrorist organizations don't exist to prevent American citizens from donating money or supplies to domestic terror groups. And the conduits to white nationalist radicalization - from books like The Turner Diaries and The Great Replacement to white nationalist propaganda once circulated via newsletters and now shared online - are constitutionally protected.

The FBI's history cuts both ways

The FBI and Department of Justice have lengthy histories of battling white nationalist terror groups and organizations, using informants and surveillance to monitor white nationalist organizations and try to stop attacks before they take place. It was, after all, a paid FBI informant who stopped a planned attempt to bomb a Kansas apartment complex that was home to hundreds of Somali refugees in 2016, and it was an undercover FBI agent who may have prevented an attack on a South Carolina synagogue in 2017.

But the history of the FBI makes Director Wray's point regarding "policing ideology" all the more poignant, because the agency and the Department of Justice itself have historically been all too happy to do just that.

Under the 1956 to 1971 COINTELPRO program, the FBI and DOJ used heavy-handed tactics to battle the 1960s iteration of the Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacist groups like the American Nazi Party. Those included everything from hiring mob enforcers to sending thousands of postcards to suspected Klan members with messages like "KLANSMAN! Trying to hide your identity under your sheet? You received this. SOMEONE knows who you are."

Those practices helped to break the grip of the Klan and other white nationalist and white supremacist groups, but those same practices were used against civil rights luminaries and antiwar activists, as shown by the 1976 findings of the Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, also known as the Church Committee.

Resurrecting that level of ideology policing is a fraught prospect, even for those asking the FBI to do more today.

As National Review editor Rich Lowry notes, "Of course, the contemporary FBI obviously isn't going to take over the alt-right, nor should we want it to. The abuses of the COINTELPRO programs - the FBI also targeted civil-rights groups and the New Left, among others - became notorious when they were exposed in the 1970s."

There's a debate over whether domestic terror needs its own statute

That's why some experts oppose calls to create a statute that would make domestic terrorism a specific crime.

Michael German, the former FBI special agent, said a domestic terrorism statute would be duplicative because the acts committed by white nationalist terrorists are generally already crimes. For example, the men behind the Oklahoma City bombing weren't charged with domestic terrorism, but with charges centered on conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction and malicious destruction of property. In a brutal attack committed by white supremacists in Jackson, Mississippi, in 2011, those involved were charged with federal hate crimes, assault, and murder and were ultimately sent to prison.

"There are already 52 federal crimes of terrorism that apply to entirely domestic acts, five federal hate crimes statutes that address the bias crimes often committed by white supremacists commit ... and dozens of other statutes that can and have been used to prosecute domestic terrorists," he said. "The Justice Department's failure to prioritize the investigation and prosecution of white supremacists results from a policy choice, not a lack of authority."

German added that any statute aimed at white nationalist violence would likely be used against nonviolent political activism of all kinds. He said that under current statutes governing domestic terror, the Department of Justice is "most aggressively targeting groups like Black Lives Matter activists (which the FBI labeled as black identity extremists), Standing Rock water protectors, environmental activists, and anti-Trump protesters, who are far less violent than white supremacists and far-right militia groups that are consistently committing violent."

"As in earlier eras, the FBI has been targeting these activists using their nonviolent civil disobedience as justification for opening terrorism cases against them." It's DOJ's "intentional lack of attention" to crimes committed by white nationalists that's the problem, German said, not a lack of laws governing domestic terror.

But David Gomez, the former terrorism task force coordinator, disagrees, telling me that what's needed is "expanded legal jurisdiction in the form of new laws allowing proactive investigation" into white nationalist terror.

Spitalnick concurred, saying that addressing the role of online platforms in radicalizing white nationalists is necessary, along with other efforts. Those include improving the existing domestic terror statute, investing in counter-extremism measures on the federal, state, and local level, and passing legislation like the Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act, a bill that would codify an interagency domestic terror task force into law. In short, she said, "domestic terrorism must be treated with the same weight as global terrorism."

What took place in El Paso was an act of domestic terrorism, as law enforcement, commentators and millions of Americans have agreed. But what that means rhetorically is different from what it means legally. We're finally ready to call white nationalist terrorism "terrorism," but law enforcement, for many reasons, isn't bringing charges under that name. And, perhaps, it shouldn't.

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Why the El Paso shooter isn't being charged with terrorism

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It's no wonder that the US attorney for the Western District of Texas said Sunday that the man who drove 600 miles to kill 22 people in the ethnically diverse city of El Paso, Texas, was being treated as a domestic terrorist. But it's a largely hollow statement: The shooter won't be charged as a domestic terrorist.

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CLOSE

WASHINGTON - A new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll shows that about half of Americans disapprove of the way President Donald Trump handled recent mass shootings in Dayton, Ohio and El Paso, Texas.

The two shootings led to 31 deaths, and the shooter in El Paso left behind a "manifesto" filled with anti-Latino and anti-immigrant rhetoric. The shootings spurred some discussion in Congress on gun control, too - the House Judiciary Committee says that they'll call short their congressional recess and take up bills on gun control on Sept. 4.

Only 36% of Americans polled approved of Trump's handling of the shootings, and 12% responded that they were unsure. The survey of 1,000 adults was conducted by phone from August 10-14 with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.

Trump had faced intense criticism from Democratic lawmakers and presidential candidates for not offering more specifics on actions or policies he would use to address mass shootings, or repudiating his own rhetoric that many critics of the president saw as linked to the attacks.

More: Trump used words like 'invasion' and 'killer' to discuss immigrants at rallies 500 times: USA TODAY analysi s

Fifty-five percent of Americans said they were "very worried" that another shooting or other attack perpetrated by white nationalists would happen.

A majority of Americans also voiced support for various gun control measures asked about in the poll.

89% supported background checks to all firearms sales and transfers.

76% supported "red flag" laws that would allow law enforcement to temporarily restrict access to firearms for those deemed a threat to themselves or the public

75% supported a gun buyback program.

62% supported an assault weapons ban

25% supported a handgun ban

More: 'It's real. It's violent': After El Paso, Latinos across America live in fear

More: Hundreds answer husband's viral post to attend funeral of El Paso mass shooting victim

A sizable proportion of Americans also linked Trump to the violence. Forty percent of Americans thought that Trump's rhetoric on Twitter and his speeches had a "great deal" of responsibility for the shootings.

Forty-three percent of Americans approved of the president's time in office so far, down two percentage points from last month's NBC/WSJ poll.

Read or Share this story: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/08/19/half-americans-disapprove-trumps-response-shootings/2049144001/

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Poll: About half of Americans disapprove of how Trump handled El Paso and Dayton shootings

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CLOSE WASHINGTON - A new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll shows that about half of Americans disapprove of the way President Donald Trump handled recent mass shootings in Dayton, Ohio and El Paso, Texas. The two shootings led to 31 deaths, and the shooter in El Paso left behind a "manifesto" filled with anti-Latino and anti-immigrant rhetoric.

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Many questions remain in the motivations of the man who allegedly committed a mass shooting in Dayton, Ohio, last weekend, leaving nine dead before responding officers shot him to death.

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But officials briefed on the investigation told ABC News the suspected shooter demonstrated a misogyny that was far more extreme than any of his political leanings.

In that, he follows a bleak pattern among mass shooters.

"There are red flags," Jacquelyn Campbell of the Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing and one of the leading domestic violence researchers in the nation told ABC News. "There are things about these shooters' behavior before these things happen that I think we as a country need to think hard about in terms of trying to make these things less frequently happen."

After many mass shootings, information comes out that links the shooter to gender-based and domestic violence -- and many massacres, like this one, include female family members, partners and ex-partners among the victims.

Ten of 2018's 20 mass shootings, as defined by ABC News, were instances of domestic violence, including against intimate partners or family members, a January ABC analysis showed. One of the victims of the Dayton shooting was Megan Betts, the alleged shooter's 22-year-old sister.

A Mother Jones analysis released this spring found that in at least 22 mass shootings since 2011, which accounts for over a third of public attacks, the shooters "had a history of domestic violence, specifically targeted women, or had stalked and harassed women."

Those attacks range from ones where the shooter had a history of violence against women -- like the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting and 2017 Sutherland Springs church shooting -- to those apparently motivated by hatred of women: the 2014 Isla Vista shooting and 2018 Tallahassee shooting, among others.

And some are actual incidents of domestic or intimate-partner violence -- such as a January shooting in Louisiana and a 2018 shooting in Chicago.

Jeff Oaks/AP

It's difficult to define a profile of mass shooters, as those incidents are relatively rare, Sierra Smucker, an associate policy researcher at the nonprofit RAND Corporation think tank, told ABC.

But "domestic violence, unlike mass shootings, is incredible common," she added.

The domestic violence homicide rate increased from 2015 to 2017 -- the latest available years for data -- after a long decline, a Northeastern University study published this spring found.

"A larger atmosphere in which domestic violence is accepted and happens often is going to definitely increase the likelihood that misogyny and hatred of women and violence towards women can become a mass shooting," Smucker said.

Campbell noted that domestic and intimate partner violence is committed even by young people -- mostly boys and teens -- in middle and high school, often due to an accumulation of trauma experienced in childhood. But, she said, "we don't have any really good interventions for them."

High school classmates of Connor Betts, 24, the suspected Dayton shooter, for example, said he was suspended for making a "rape list" of female classmates he wanted to sexually assault, The Associated Press reported. They said he was later suspended over a "hit list" found in a school bathroom.

A former camp-mate of Betts told The Cincinnati Enquirer he saw Betts choke a girl he was dating as a teen.

ABC News could not independently confirm that report.

That is what they're seeing as the threat, as this faceless feminism that's coming after them.

Beyond misogyny and domestic violence, much of the conversation around shootings lately has been about white nationalism and racism, as highlighted by the El Paso shooting, in which the alleged shooter targeted Hispanics, authorities said.

But Gina Longo, an assistant sociology professor at Virginia Commonwealth University, said racist motivations and misogynistic ones are not independent of each other.

"These are all intersectional and they all influence and inform one another," she said.

That violence often bubbles up, Longo added, from men seeing "different minority groups, including women," claiming rights and privileges historically awarded to white men in America.

"You hear a lot of men talking not necessarily about women in their own family, but 'feminism,'" Longo told ABC News. "It's 'out there' and there are certain groups of women who are trying to 'poison the well,' if we want to look at it like that, with these different ideas -- and that is what they're seeing as the threat, as this faceless feminism that's coming after them."

This can be exacerbated, she said, by online chatter. Just as social media can be used to influence elections, Longo said, "I think it's the same thing with promoting violence or misogyny or letting it fester in certain places."

John Minchillo/AP

While law enforcement and social scientists are still playing catch-up to understand how people's actions online translate into real life threats, those close to an individual in real life have a role to play, the experts say, with policies like extreme risk protection orders, known as "red flag" laws.

With those policies, lawmakers could take lessons from the fact that the presence of a gun in a domestic violence situation greatly increases the risk of homicide.

In the case of the Dayton shooting, as far as public evidence has shown, Betts had not been charged with any sort of domestic violence, which could have prevented him from obtaining a gun. But his ex-girlfriend said he allegedly had a fascination with violence.

"She may not have wanted to break up with him (she might think there are possibilities there), she may not want him to go to jail, she may not want to press charges on domestic violence even if there was something there, but she might say, 'This guy does not need to have this huge arsenal of guns, this is concerning to me,'" Campbell said, arguing that there should be an easy and encouraged way of doing so as part of laws and policies.

There are laws in many states that prevent a person from having access to a gun if they are charged or convicted of domestic violence or if a restraining order is in place, and states with those more restrictive laws tend to have lower rates of domestic violence homicides.

"Extreme risk protection orders are really drawing on the success, in some ways, of these domestic violence-related gun laws to expand that policy mechanism to people who may not be in situations that are specifically domestic or intimate partner-based but may suggest they are a threat to people around them if they have access to firearms," Smucker said.

"[Those] laws recognize that the people who are most likely to know when someone may be dangerous are people who are very close to that person," she added.

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Alleged Dayton gunman showed signs of misogyny, mirroring a grim pattern for shooters

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Many questions remain in the motivations of the man who allegedly committed a mass shooting in Dayton, Ohio, last weekend, leaving nine dead before responding officers shot him to death. Add Dayton Mass Shooting as an interest to stay up to date on the latest Dayton Mass Shooting news, video, and analysis from ABC News.

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Mass shootings in America seem like a never-ending nightmare.

On Saturday, a shooting in El, Paso, Texas, killed 20 people and injured 26 more. On Sunday, a shooting in Dayton, Ohio, killed at least 10 and injured 26 more. The weekend before, a shooting in Gilroy, California, killed four and wounded 13 others, while yet another shooting in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, killed six and injured two.

That doesn't even account for the average 100-plus gun deaths that aren't part of mass shootings but happen every day in the US.

Why does this keep happening? In the aftermath of a shooting, many Americans focus on the shooter's motive. That leads to some legitimate questions, like whether the gunman in El Paso was motivated by white supremacy and racism that President Donald Trump has enabled, or what role, if any, mental illness played. It's also led to some less valid contributions, such as House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick's bizarre comments suggesting violent video games are to blame.

But the reason for the ceaseless death toll is simpler: It ultimately comes down to America's lax access to a large supply of guns.

Many factors can of course play a role in any individual shooting. But when you want to explain why America sees so many of these mass shootings in general - more than 250 so far in 2019, by one estimate - and why America suffers more gun violence than other developed nations, none of these factors gives a satisfying answer. Only guns are the common variable.

To put it another way: America doesn't have a monopoly on racism, sexism, other kinds of bigotry, mental illness, or violent video games. All of those things exist in countries across the world, many with much less gun violence. What is unique about the US is that it makes it so easy for people with any motive or problem to obtain a gun.

America's gun problem, briefly explained

It comes down to two basic problems.

First, America has uniquely weak gun laws. Other developed nations at the very least require one or more background checks and almost always something more rigorous beyond that to get a gun, from specific training courses to rules for locking up firearms to more arduous licensing requirements to specific justifications, besides self-defense, for owning a gun.

In the US, even a background check isn't an absolute requirement; the current federal law is riddled with loopholes and hampered by poor enforcement, so there are many ways around even a basic background check. And if a state enacts stricter measures than federal laws, someone can simply cross state lines to buy guns in a jurisdiction with looser rules. There are simply very few barriers, if any, to getting a gun in the US.

Second, the US has a ton of guns. It has far more than not just other developed nations but any other country, period. In 2017, the estimated number of civilian-owned firearms in the US was 120.5 guns per 100 residents, meaning there were more firearms than people. The world's second-ranked country was Yemen, a quasi-failed state torn by civil war, where there were 52.8 guns per 100 residents, according to an analysis from the Small Arms Survey.

Both of these factors come together to make it uniquely easy for someone with violent intent to find a firearm, allowing them to carry out a horrific shooting.

This is borne out in the statistics, which show America has far more gun violence than other developed nations. The US has nearly six times the gun homicide rate of Canada, more than seven times that of Sweden, and nearly 16 times that of Germany, according to United Nations data for 2012 compiled by the Guardian. (These gun deaths are one reason America has a much higher overall homicide rate, which includes non-gun deaths, than the rest of the developed world.)

If having so many guns around actually made the US safer, as the National Rifle Association and pro-gun politicians claim, America would have one of the lowest rates of gun violence in the world. But the statistics suggest that, in fact, the opposite is true.

The research, compiled by the Harvard School of Public Health's Injury Control Research Center, is also pretty clear: After controlling for variables such as socioeconomic factors and other crime, places with more guns have more gun deaths. Researchers have found this to be true not just with homicides but also with suicides (which in recent years were around 60 percent of US gun deaths), domestic violence, violence against police, and mass shootings.

As a breakthrough analysis by UC Berkeley's Franklin Zimring and Gordon Hawkins in the 1990s found, it's not even that the US has more crime than other developed countries. This chart, based on data from Jeffrey Swanson at Duke University, shows that the US is not an outlier when it comes to overall crime:

Instead, the US appears to have more lethal violence - and that's driven in large part by the prevalence of guns.

"A series of specific comparisons of the death rates from property crime and assault in New York City and London show how enormous differences in death risk can be explained even while general patterns are similar," Zimring and Hawkins wrote. "A preference for crimes of personal force and the willingness and ability to use guns in robbery make similar levels of property crime 54 times as deadly in New York City as in London."

This is in many ways intuitive: People of every country get into arguments and fights with friends, family, and peers. Every country has extremists and other hateful individuals. But in the US, it's much more likely that someone who's angry or hateful will be able to pull out a gun and kill someone, because there are so many guns around and few barriers to getting the weapons.

Researchers have found that stricter gun laws could help. A 2016 review of 130 studies in 10 countries, published in Epidemiologic Reviews, found that new legal restrictions on owning and purchasing guns tended to be followed by a drop in gun violence - a strong indicator that restricting access to guns can save lives. A review of the US evidence by RAND also linked some gun control measures, including background checks, to reduced injuries and deaths. A growing body of evidence, from Johns Hopkins researchers, also supports laws that require a license to buy and own guns.

That doesn't mean that bigots and extremists will never be able to carry out a shooting in places with stricter gun laws. Even the strictest gun laws can't prevent every shooting.

Guns are also not the only contributor to violence. Other factors include, for example, poverty, urbanization, alcohol consumption, and the strength of criminal justice systems.

But when researchers control for other confounding variables, they have found time and again that America's loose access to guns is a major reason the US is so much worse in terms of gun violence than its developed peers.

So America, with its lax laws and abundance of firearms, makes it uniquely easy for people to commit horrific gun violence. Until the US confronts that issue, it will continue to see mass shooting after mass shooting.

For more on America's gun problem, read Vox's explainer.

Correction: This post originally included an overestimate of the 2019 mass shootings.

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Mass shootings in America seem like a never-ending nightmare. On Saturday, a shooting in El, Paso, Texas, killed 20 people and injured 26 more. On Sunday, a shooting in Dayton, Ohio, killed at least 10 and injured 26 more.

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WASHINGTON - A new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll shows that about half of Americans disapprove of the way President Donald Trump handled recent mass shootings in Dayton, Ohio and El Paso, Texas.

The two shootings led to 31 deaths, and the shooter in El Paso left behind a "manifesto" filled with anti-Latino and anti-immigrant rhetoric. The shootings spurred some discussion in Congress on gun control, too - the House Judiciary Committee says that they'll call short their congressional recess and take up bills on gun control on Sept. 4.

Only 36% of Americans polled approved of Trump's handling of the shootings, and 12% responded that they were unsure. The survey of 1,000 adults was conducted by phone from August 10-14 with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.

Trump had faced intense criticism from Democratic lawmakers and presidential candidates for not offering more specifics on actions or policies he would use to address mass shootings, or repudiating his own rhetoric that many critics of the president saw as linked to the attacks.

More: Trump used words like 'invasion' and 'killer' to discuss immigrants at rallies 500 times: USA TODAY analysi s

Fifty-five percent of Americans said they were "very worried" that another shooting or other attack perpetrated by white nationalists would happen.

A majority of Americans also voiced support for various gun control measures asked about in the poll.

89% supported background checks to all firearms sales and transfers.

76% supported "red flag" laws that would allow law enforcement to temporarily restrict access to firearms for those deemed a threat to themselves or the public

75% supported a gun buyback program.

62% supported an assault weapons ban

25% supported a handgun ban

More: 'It's real. It's violent': After El Paso, Latinos across America live in fear

More: Hundreds answer husband's viral post to attend funeral of El Paso mass shooting victim

A sizable proportion of Americans also linked Trump to the violence. Forty percent of Americans thought that Trump's rhetoric on Twitter and his speeches had a "great deal" of responsibility for the shootings.

Forty-three percent of Americans approved of the president's time in office so far, down two percentage points from last month's NBC/WSJ poll.

Read or Share this story: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/08/19/half-americans-disapprove-trumps-response-shootings/2049144001/

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Poll: About half of Americans disapprove of how Trump handled El Paso and Dayton shootings

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CLOSE WASHINGTON - A new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll shows that about half of Americans disapprove of the way President Donald Trump handled recent mass shootings in Dayton, Ohio and El Paso, Texas. The two shootings led to 31 deaths, and the shooter in El Paso left behind a "manifesto" filled with anti-Latino and anti-immigrant rhetoric.

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(COLUMBUS, Ohio)-Ohio Governor Mike DeWine today announced a series of legislative reforms to address gun violence and outlined further action to increase mental health prevention, identification, and treatment to better protect Ohioans.

"Gun violence doesn't just take the form of mass shootings, people are victims every day in Ohio and across the country," said Governor DeWine. "I believe that this is both a public safety issue and an individual wellness issue - we must address both sides to help solve the problem. It's time to do something, and that is exactly what we are going to do."

This series of solid, workable reforms will help get guns out of the hands of people who should not have them under the law while protecting the rights of law-abiding citizens who are entitled to the right to bear arms and will help prevent and treat those struggling with mental illness.

Governor DeWine's proposals include:

Safety Protection Orders. Governor DeWine is asking the legislature to pass a law to allow courts to issue Safety Protection Orders which would remove firearms from potentially dangerous individuals and get them the mental health treatment they need all while maintaining an individual's right to due process.

Increased Access to Inpatient Psychiatric Care. Over the past several years, Ohio's state psychiatric hospitals have become predominantly used by patients who are court-ordered there for restoration to competency to stand trial. This week 79% of the adults in our state psychiatric hospitals are under court order. The Ohio Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services (OhioMHAS) is working to create a process where courts and community-based providers can work together to restore competency for those to stand trial in an outpatient setting which will free more hospital beds and decrease wait time for admission. The Ohio General Assembly will need to pass legislation to create this community-based misdemeanor competency restoration process.

Early Intervention. As part of the 2019-2020 biennium operating budget, the state is investing $675 million in wrap-around services for schools to design individualized programs, working with local mental health providers or social service organizations, to address the social and emotional challenges our students face.

Access to Behavioral Health Services. The Ohio Department of Medicaid is investing $15 million in telehealth mental health services to students, so no matter where a child lives, they have access to high-quality mental health care.

Risk Factor and Resource Identification. OhioMHAS will be working with communities to increase knowledge of risk factors, help parents identify when their child is showing warning signs of a mental illness. The department will share screening tools with clinicians and help connect community-based services to link parents, families, and schools with proven supports and strategies to manage a child's wellness over the child's lifetime.

Background Checks. Governor DeWine is calling on the Ohio General Assembly to pass a law requiring background checks for all firearms sales in the state of Ohio with certain limited, reasonable exceptions, including gifts between family members.

Increased Penalties for Felons Who Illegally Possess Firearms. Gun violence occurs in neighborhoods and communities every day across Ohio and the nation. Law enforcement reports that the majority of this violence is perpetrated by a relatively small number of individuals who don't have the right to possess a gun. Governor DeWine is calling on the General Assembly to increase penalties on felons who illegally possess or use guns.

Increased Penalties for Violent Felons Who Illegally Possess Firearms. Governor DeWine is calling on the General Assembly to increase penalties for violent felons and other people found with a gun they do not have the legal right to possess. The crime of having a weapon while under a disability is currently a third-degree felony punishable by a maximum of three years in prison. On a first offense, the crime should be a second-degree felony punishable by two-to eight-years in prison, and for subsequent offenses, it should be a first-degree felony punishable by three- to eleven-years incarceration.

Increased Penalties for People Who Commit Felonies While in Possessing Firearms. This proposal would increase penalties for people who commit felonies with a firearm or who possess a firearm while committing a felony to a mandatory additional one- to three-year sentence.

Increased Penalties for Brandishing a Gun. The General Assembly should pass a law that increases the penalty for those who commit a felony while brandishing a firearm to a mandatory three- to five-year sentence.

Increased Penalties for Straw Purchases. So-called "straw" purchases, the act of purchasing guns for or giving guns to another individual are currently illegal under Ohio and federal law. However, this practice is far too common, so Governor DeWine is calling on the General Assembly to increase the penalty for a straw purchase to a second-degree felony punishable by two to eight years in prison.

Increased Penalties for Illegally Obtained Guns. We should increase the penalty for a person who possesses a firearm that they know was obtained through an illegal or fraudulent purchase in order to avoid a federal background check. A person who possesses the gun should be punished in the same manner as a person who bought the firearm, increasing the penalty to a second-degree felony punishable by two- to- eight years in prison.

Increased Penalties for Those Who Improperly Provide Firearms to Minors. Too many kids are carrying guns on the streets often with tragic consequences. Adults who furnish firearms to minors must be held accountable. Governor DeWine proposes that the General Assembly increase the penalty for improperly providing a firearm to a minor to a third-degree felony punishable by up to three years in prison.

School Tip Line. The DeWine administration is expanding the state's school safety tip line, where kids and adults can call or text anonymously to 844-723-3764 with tips about potential school violence.

Social Media Monitoring. In a 24-7 world of social media, threats can arise at any time. The Hub at the Ohio Department of Public Safety is expanding their ability to monitor and track potential threats on social media and will share that information with local school and local law enforcement.

Community Safety. The operating budget provides nearly $9 million to help harden soft targets like non-profits and religious organizations to make their facilities more secure.

School Safety and Intervention Programs. Working closely with Sandy Hook Promise, Ohio's schools are implementing their "Know the Signs" safety program across the state. This program equips school staff with knowledge and skills to identify potential threats of violent action and take steps to intervene. There are 23 training dates already scheduled.

"I believe these proposals fulfill three important requirements. They can pass the legislature, they make meaningful progress toward safer communities, and they are Constitutional. Passing them won't be easy, but this is the right thing to do and this is the right time to do it," Governor DeWine added. "We can pull together to do meaningful things to protect lives. It won't be easy, but I believe in this state, and I believe in our people."

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Proposals to Reduce Gun Violence, Increase Mental Health Prevention, Treatment

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(COLUMBUS, Ohio)-Ohio Governor Mike DeWine today announced a series of legislative reforms to address gun violence and outlined further action to increase mental health prevention, identification, and treatment to better protect Ohioans. "Gun violence doesn't just take the form of mass shootings, people are victims every day in Ohio and across the country," said Governor DeWine.

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-Arwa

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Those who are set on killing minorities are aided by the fact that they can easily obtain assault weapons in this country.

By

Mr. Ramos is a contributing Opinion writer.

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People attend a candlelight vigil honoring victims of the terrorist attack last week, which left 22 people dead, in El Paso, Texas. Credit Credit Mario Tama/Getty Images

EL PASO - "I don't know why he took my boy's life," Dora Lizarde said. Her grandson Javier, 15, was the youngest victim of last weekend's massacre, killed by a bullet to the head. "Fifteen years old; he still had so much time to live," Ms. Lizarde told me in an interview this week. "I don't know why he took him away, I don't understand. He is young, too."

Patrick Crusius is young, too.

Police have charged Mr. Crusius, 21, in the mass shooting that killed 22 people at a crowded Walmart here on Aug. 3. Nineteen of the victims had Spanish surnames, making this the worst attack on Latinos in modern American history. The Mexican government has labeled the killings a terrorist act, given that eight Mexican citizens were among the dead. And, yes, it is a hate crime.

The massacre of Latinos in El Paso is the latest and most brutal reaction by a young, white American against a future that might be dominated by minorities. The fact that this attack happened is unsurprising: What else can we expect when racism and hatred of others is promoted from the top down in a country where there are more guns than people?

Authorities have said that Mr. Crusius posted a 2,300-word manifesto online minutes before the attack. In it, he said the attack was in response to a "Hispanic invasion of Texas." "It makes no sense to keep letting millions of illegal or legal immigrants flood into the United States," Mr. Crusius supposedly wrote, "and to keep the tens of millions that are already here." Those words startled me - not only because they were so hateful, but because they could seamlessly fit into speeches given by President Trump, by some members of his cabinet and by many right-wing politicians.

While Mr. Trump insists that he does not have " a racist bone" in his body, his history of making racist remarks says otherwise. After years of suggesting that President Barack Obama had not been born in the United States, Mr. Trump launched his presidential campaign in 2015 by likening Mexican immigrants to criminals and rapists. He recently said that four congresswomen of color should " go back " to the countries from which they came. The list goes on. When the most powerful man in the world uses such toxic rhetoric, we should not be surprised when others mimic him.

Beto O'Rourke, the former congressman from El Paso and a Democratic presidential candidate, recently told me that he is convinced Mr. Trump influenced the attack. Mr. O'Rourke - who along with Senator Elizabeth Warren, another Democratic candidate for the presidency, has said in recent days that Mr. Trump is a " white supremacist" - responded to a tweet from the president by writing: "22 people in my hometown are dead after an act of terror inspired by your racism." Other leaders and politicians, including Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, have also lost their patience with Mr. Trump. "I don't want to hear the question 'Is this president racist?' anymore. He is," Ms. Ocasio-Cortez said recently.

The president's xenophobia, and that of many of his supporters and enablers, is rooted in a dread that the day is soon coming when they will be a minority in their country. While non-Hispanic whites remain a majority of the population in the United States, in less than 30 years that may no longer be the case, according to projections. This sort of demographic revolution is putting Americans' tolerance to the test. Most of us welcome an increasingly diverse country, but many, like Mr. Trump, resist the country's multiethnic, multicultural future. Some react by walking into a store and murdering innocent people.

The most racist Americans who are set on killing minorities are aided by the fact that they can easily obtain assault weapons in this country. I've lost count of all the massacres I've covered as a journalist. After each shooting - Columbine, Sandy Hook, Las Vegas, Parkland - I thought we might have reached the limit of Americans' tolerance for such horror. But it wasn't so. I fear that the killings in El Paso won't change anything, and that I soon will be back on another flight headed to cover the next massacre. And then another. And another after that.

I have lost hope that the United States will ever pass laws that limit access to firearms. Like many parents around the country, I've had difficult conversations with my children in case they find themselves in a situation where someone is shooting at them. "Try to escape, hide or fight," I tell them. "But don't stay still. Gunmen have a lot of bullets, but not patience."

Still, even if we could somehow solve our gun problem in America, our racism problem would be far more difficult to eradicate. Hate-group activity is on the rise, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. And anti-immigrant rhetoric has already appeared in slogans shouted during the 2020 presidential campaign.

I crossed the border from El Paso to Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, one morning this week. For many years, Juárez was considered one of the most dangerous cities in Mexico because of the presence of drug cartels. Yet on this visit some people I spoke with told me that they didn't dare cross into El Paso with their families. When I asked why, some said that they feared being hunted for being Mexican, and all said that racism was a factor.

Nobody should live in fear because they are Mexican nationals in the United States or members of the Latino community. But that's where we are now in this United States of Trump. The abundance of weapons of war on the streets and Mr. Trump's unending racist rhetoric are indisputably connected to the massacre in El Paso. What happened in this city was a massacre foretold. Words matter. When they are filled with hate, they cause great damage.

Mr. Ramos is an anchor for the Univision network and the author of "Stranger: The Challenge of a Latino Immigrant in the Trump Era."
The Times is committed to publishing Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. a diversity of letters to the editor. We'd like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here's our email: letters@nytimes.com.

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Opinion | El Paso Was a Massacre Foretold

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Those who are set on killing minorities are aided by the fact that they can easily obtain assault weapons in this country. By Mr. Ramos is a contributing Opinion writer. EL PASO ­- "I don't know why he took my boy's life," Dora Lizarde said.

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In the aftermath of the mass shootings this month in Dayton and El Paso, the U.S. House Judiciary Committee will meet in early September to act on a series of gun control measures, including 10-round limits on ammunition magazines, red-flag laws, enhanced background checks and adding new reasons for blocking someone from buying a firearm.

COMPLETE COVERAGE: Oregon District mass shooting

While Congress isn't back for votes until the week of Sept. 9, the announcement by the House Judiciary Committee will bring lawmakers back just after Labor Day for committee work - with the goal of votes on the various gun bills in the House later that month.

Just days after the mass shooting in the Oregon District, U.S. Rep. Mike Turner, R-Dayton, announced support for gun restrictions, including limits on magazines, a ban on sales of military style weapons to civilians and allowing removal of weapons from people deemed to be a danger to themselves or others - a red flag law.

But others in the southwest Ohio congressional delegation haven't publicly expressed such changes of heart and some have doubled down on their opposition to gun control.

U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Urbana, who is a member of the House Judiciary Committee, said in a recent tweet: "The problem with red-flag laws is you're guilty until proven innocent. It's the same inverted standard that Bob Mueller tried to apply to President Trump. But that's not how justice works in our great country."

In Twitter posts, U.S. Rep. Warren Davidson, R-Troy, expressed opposition to gun control measures, including red flag laws, and has said the focus should be on culture and mental health. "These horrendous and ongoing crimes are a symptom of our hurting culture. While most crime is declining, acts of despair (mass murder, suicide, addiction...) are spreading like contagion. We cannot underestimate the damage done by hostile cultural influences that bombard us - even sometimes in our schools and in public discourse," he said on social media after the Dayton shooting.

In 2016, the Gun Owners of America gave Davidson an A rating.

In February, Ohio's 12 Republican members of Congress voted against a bill to enhance background checks for gun purchases while the four Democratic members of Congress voted in favor.

Davidson issued a statement explaining his opposition, saying "Indefinitely extending the waiting period to purchase a firearm would deny countless Americans of their fundamental Constitutional right to keep and bear arms. Congress should focus on making the background check process operate with greater efficiency, accuracy and fairness. This legislation fails to solve problems."

U.S. Rep. Steve Chabot, R-Cincinnati, is backed by the National Rifle Association, which called Chabot a "staunch supporter of the Second Amendment."

Without responding to questions about how he would vote on the pending gun measures, Chabot said in a statement through his spokesman:"The Judiciary Committee has jurisdiction over Second Amendment issues, including gun control legislation. It's our responsibility to consider any and all legislation that might make the American people safer."

Democrats also tried to turn up the heat on GOP leaders in the Senate, where a bill to expand background checks to all private gun sales has been stalled for months.

"The Majority Leader should call the Senate back to Washington to debate and vote on gun violence legislation," said Sen. Bob Casey, D-Penn.

Some Democrats also want to force a vote on banning certain assault weapons - Congress approved such a measure back in 1994, but it expired after 10 years.

President Donald Trump has held talks with some Democrats on the issue of expanding background checks, but his language at a campaign rally on Thursday night in New Hampshire did not signal any compromise on guns, as he focused more on the issue of mental health.

"It's not the gun that pulls the trigger. It's the person holding the gun," the president said.

The bills on the schedule in September before the House Judiciary Committee include:

* H.R. 1186, the Keep Americans Safe Act. This bill would ban high capacity ammunition magazines.

* H.R. 1236, the Extreme Risk Protector Order Act, designed to help states formulate 'Red Flag' laws.

* H.R. 3076, the Federal Extreme Risk Protection Order Act, which would allow people to go into federal court to take a firearm away from a mentally unstable person.

* H.R. 2708, the Disarm Hate Act, which would add misdemeanor hate crimes to the list of items disqualifying someone from buying a weapon, under the current background check system.

* H.R. 1112, the Enhanced Background Checks Act, which stems from the mass shooting at a black church in Charleston, S.C. In that case, the shooter was able to buy his firearms - even though he would have failed the background check - because the feds did not conduct a check within three business days.

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U.S. House set to act on gun measures following Dayton, El Paso shootings

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In the aftermath of the mass shootings this month in Dayton and El Paso, the U.S. House Judiciary Committee will meet in early September to act on a series of gun control measures, including 10-round limits on ammunition magazines, red-flag laws, enhanced background checks and adding new reasons for blocking someone from buying a firearm.

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El Paso, Texas -- El Paso shooting suspect Patrick Crusius has been placed on suicide watch, CBS El Paso affiliate KDBC reports.

The El Paso County Sheriff's Office said he decision was made by medical staff but no other information was provided on why the move was made.

Crusius is accused of opening fire at the Walmart in east El Paso on Aug. 3, killing 22 people and wounding or injuring dozens of others.

The arrest affidavits say he targeted Mexicans in this border city.

Crusius is facing capital murder charges. He is being held in isolation and without bond at the El Paso County Detention Center.

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El Paso mass shooting suspect on suicide watch

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El Paso, Texas -- El Paso shooting suspect Patrick Crusius has been placed on suicide watch, CBS El Paso affiliate KDBC reports. The El Paso County Sheriff's Office said he decision was made by medical staff but no other information was provided on why the move was made.

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Antonio Basco was expecting a near-empty church for the funeral of his wife who died in the El Paso mass shooting in Texas, US, in August. Mr Basco said he did not have family so he invited the community - but was shocked to find people queuing to get in.

The size of the crowd was so huge that the funeral company had to move the service to a larger facility.

As he walked in, Mr Basco said: "This is incredible."

About 700 people queued to pay their respects to Margie Reckard, 63, one of 22 people killed when a gunman opened fire at a Walmart store.

The line went around the church and along another road.

Many people came from across the US.

Hala Hijazi travelled from San Francisco to attend the service. She said that she read Tony Basco's story and knew she had to attend.

"It pierced into my heart and soul and made me book a flight to El Paso. We need to show when America is in pain, we are all in pain," she said.

According to the New York Times, about 900 floral arrangements sent from as far afield as Asia were sent to the service.

Some were sent from Dayton, Ohio, where another mass shooting killed nine people just hours after the attack in El Paso.

El Paso victim's father 'forgives' the gunman

'The worst thing I've been through in my life'

It was standing-room only inside the El Paso venue.

The service included singing and a mariachi band.

Dean Reckard, Margie Reckard's son from another marriage, said his mother "loved everyone regardless of colour, religion or politics".

He added: "Everywhere I look, I just see all these flowers. I don't think I've ever seen this many flowers."

Her grandson Tyler said: "People were telling me they came from different faiths, different cities. It's just incredible how much love and support every single one of you has shown."

Mr Basco and Ms Reckard met at a bar in Nebraska 22 years ago and eventually settled in El Paso. They enjoyed travelling around the US by train.

He said their life was "like a fairytale".

" She was a lady and she was the love of my life."

After hearing Mr Basco's story, the funeral home director told the BBC they had decided to cover the full cost of the funeral.

Harrison B Johnson said: "We have had a tremendous outpouring of support after we shared the post. It is our privilege to honour and serve the community to try and make that burden lighter after a tragedy that has devastated our community.

"We just wanted to do our part to help in some small way."

All images copyright.

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Man shocked as hundreds attend wife's funeral

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Antonio Basco was expecting a near-empty church for the funeral of his wife who died in the El Paso mass shooting in Texas, US, in August. Mr Basco said he did not have family so he invited the community - but was shocked to find people queuing to get in.