CCTV Photos of shooter Patrick Crusius

Texas and Ohio were the scenes of two mass murders in less than 24 hours commited by lone gunmen that have killed 29 people and left at least 52 injured.

Three Shooting Stories On This Posting

The first took place Saturday morning in El Paso, Texas when 22 people were been killed and 26 injured.The massacre happened at a Walmart store near the Cielo Vista Mall, a few miles from the US-Mexican border. Police have evidence this may have been a hate crime (read below).

The second happened just after midnight Sunday morning 2,000 miles away outside a bar in Dayton, Ohio.

Of the El Paso shooting, Governor Greg Abbott described it as “one of the most deadly days in the history of Texas”.

A 21-year-old man is in custody. Police said the suspect was a resident of the Dallas-area city of Allen, about 650 miles (1,046km) east of El Paso. He has been named by US media as Patrick Crusius.

 

Suspect Patrick Cruseus

 

CCTV images said to be of the gunman and broadcast on US media show a man in a dark T-shirt wearing ear protectors and brandishing an assault-style rifle.

US President Donald Trump described the attack as “an act of cowardice”.

“I know that I stand with everyone in this country to condemn today’s hateful act. There are no reasons or excuses that will ever justify killing innocent people”, he wrote on Twitter.

The victims of the attack have not yet been named. However, Mexico’s President Manuel Lopez Obrador said three Mexicans were among those killed, Reuters news agency reports.

The attack came less than a week after a teenage gunman killed three people at a California food festival. The Texas shooting has been dubbed the eighth deadliest in modern US history.

“We as a state unite in support of these victims and their family members,” Mr Abbott said.

“We must do one thing today, one thing tomorrow and each and every day after this – we must unite.”

The police and FBI are investigating whether an anonymous white nationalist “manifesto”, shared on an online forum, was written by the gunman. The document says the attack was targeted at the local Hispanic community.

Store customers

What happened?

El Paso Police Chief Greg Allen said reports of an active shooter were received at 10:39 local time (16:39 GMT), and law enforcement officers were on the scene within six minutes.

The Walmart was full of shoppers buying back-to-school supplies at the time of the attack.

The 21-year-old is the only suspect in custody over the attack, and police say no officers fired their weapons while arresting him.

Mr Allen said the ages of victims were “numerous” as he described the situation as “horrific”.

El Paso Police Department had earlier tweeted that blood donations were “needed urgently”.

Kianna Long said she was at the Walmart with her husband when they heard gunfire. “People were panicking and running, saying that there was a shooter,” Ms Long told Reuters news agency. “They were running close to the floor, people were dropping on the floor.”

Ms Long said she and her husband ran through a stock room before taking cover with other customers.

Another witness, Glendon Oakly, told CNN that he was in a sporting goods store inside the nearby shopping mall when a child ran inside “telling us there’s an active shooter at Walmart”.

Mr Oakly said no-one took the child’s claim seriously, but just minutes later he heard two gunshots.

“I just thought about getting the kids out of the way,” he said

What has been the wider reaction?

The latest mass shooting in the United States has led to an outpouring of sympathy, but also led to fresh calls for gun control.

Walmart tweeted that it was “in shock over the tragic events” and was “working closely with law enforcement”.

Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke has abandoned a campaign event in Las Vegas to return to his home town.

Earlier, he spoke at a labour forum, telling the crowd the shooting shattered any illusion that gun reform will “come of its own accord” in the US.

“We know that there’s a lot of injury, a lot of suffering in El Paso right now,” he said.

Other Democratic presidential candidates also responded to the shooting with calls for gun control.

New Jersey Senator Cory Booker was among them, saying the US seems to be “accepting the idea that these [shootings] are going to be a regular occurrence”.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, however, said gun control would probably not have stopped the attack.

He added that if a “crazy” gunman launched such an attack, there was no way that law enforcement officers could be there to stop it.

“The best way is to be prepared to defend yourself,” he told CBS News.

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9 Dead at bar in Dayton, Ohio

In Dayton, Nine people were killed and 26 injured in the mass shooting.

First reports came in at about 01:00 local time (05:00 GMT) of a shooting outside a bar in the Oregon district of the city.

Police confirmed they killed the shooter at the scene. Casualties have been taken to a number of hospitals.

The incident came only hours after a mass shooting in El Paso, Texas which left at least 20 people dead.

“We had officers in the immediate vicinity when this shooting began and were able to respond and put an end to it quickly,” Dayton Police Department wrote in a tweet. The authorities have appealed for witnesses.

Assistant Police Chief Matt Carper told reporters that officers on patrol managed to take down the shooter.

“Our people are very well trained for a situation like this,” he said, adding it was “very fortunate that the officers were in close proximity”.

Nothing is yet known about him, but Officer Carper said they were “anxious to discover” a motivation.

What happened in Dayton?

Footage posted on social media showed people running as dozens of gunshots echoed through the streets.

It is thought the shooting took place outside Ned Peppers Bar on E 5th Street. A note saying staff members were safe appeared on Ned Peppers Instagram page and on the nearby Hole in the Wall bar’s Facebook page.

Jae Williams told the BBC he was at a nearby rap performance when they were told to evacuate.

“I was very shocked,” he said. “We all evacuated quickly and safely. We were told to avoid the Oregon district.”

“I got to my car, I could see cops, multiple ambulances. When I drove past I saw a lot of cops and ambulances.”

Emergency services gathered at the corner of E 5th Street and Wayne Avenue in the wake of the shooting.

FBI agents are also at the scene to help in the investigation.

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EL PASO: EVIDENCE OF HATE CRIME

Patrick Crusius: Suspect

In the El Paso massacre officials have evidence it could have been a hate crime.

A 21-year-old white man was arrested at the Walmart store where the attack took place in the city of El Paso, near the US-Mexico border, on Saturday.

A document, apparently posted shortly before the attack and believed to have been written by the man, espoused white supremacist and racist views.

The tract called the attack a response to “the Hispanic invasion of Texas”.

The man, who opened fire with an assault-style rifle, lived in Allen, Dallas, about 650 miles (1,046km) east of El Paso, police said. The attack also left 26 injured.

Officials have not offered a precise motive for the attack, but El Paso Police Chief Greg Allen said investigators were looking into a document that could indicate a “potential nexus to a hate crime”.

He appeared to be referring to a text posted on 8chan, an online message board frequently used by the far right, which describes a “cultural and ethnic replacement brought on by an invasion”, in reference to Hispanic people in the US.

The four-page document, believed to have been posted some 20 minutes before police received the first emergency call, also expresses support for the gunman who killed 51 people in Christchurch, New Zealand, in March.

Police said the man, who surrendered after being confronted by officers outside the store, was still being interviewed. US media has named him as Patrick Crusius.

“We’re going to aggressively prosecute it both as capital murder but also as a hate crime, which is exactly what it appears to be,” Texas Governor Greg Abbott told reporters.

The El Paso Attack

The shooting is believed to be the eighth deadliest in modern US history, and took place in El Paso, where the majority of the population is of Hispanic descent.

The victims have not yet been named but Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said three Mexican nationals were among the dead.

CCTV images said to be of the gunman and broadcast on US media show an armed man in a dark T-shirt wearing ear protectors.