generalspeaking

Thursday, August 08, 2019

"Hispanic Invasion of Texas"

"We must make sure those judged to pose a grave risk to public safety do not have access to firearms and that if they do those firearms can be taken through rapid due process."
"Mental illness and hatred pulls the trigger, not the gun."
"It is too easy today for troubled youth to surround themselves with a culture that celebrates violence. We must stop or substantially reduce this and it has to begin immediately."
U.S. President Donald Trump

"We are working on notification of next of kin."
"We're going to release the names of the deceased once we have completed that task [of confirming the victims' identities]."
Sgt.Robert Gomez, spokesman, El Paso Police Department

"Leo [Leonardo Campos Jr., 1996 Pharr-San Juan-Alamo Independent School District] was a great athlete during his time at Bears, the goalie for the soccer team and the kicker for the football team."
"He was well-liked and a role model to athletes like me that looked up to him."
"We pray for him, his wife and his entire family."
Jesus Zambrano, school board president

"I say goodbye to my partner, the most wonderful of women [Elsa Mendoza de la Mora], a being full of life who will continue to light our path for the time that life gives us ..."
"We will miss you love!!!"
Antonio Mendoza

Yamileth Lopez sits while holding a photo of her deceased friend Javier Amir Rodriguez at a makeshift memorial for victims outside Walmart on Aug. 6, 2019 in El Paso, Texas. Mario Tama/Getty Images

On Saturday-into-Sunday, a mass shooting took place in El Paso, Texas that left 22 innocent people dead when gunman Patrick Crusius, 21, stormed a Walmart store, shooting to kill. A full 48 hours later authorities in El Paso had not yet released the names of the dead. Thirteen hours later, another mass shooting took place in Dayton, Ohio, where nine people lost their lives, as well as that of the shooter. There, authorities swiftly identified the victims.

In the El Paso mass shooting there were seven Mexican nationals identified by Mexican officials. Although no official notifications have gone out, some of the victims' identities have been revealed by their family members, sometimes through postings on social media sites. The Walmart had been sealed off, the parking lot holding vehicles of those who had been shopping when the store was stormed by the gunman.

Inside the store the dead shooting victims were held until Sunday, with medical examiners working the weekend, completing the process by Sunday afternoon. Among those who failed survive the onslaught was a young couple, shopping with their two-month-old baby. The mother attempted to shield her baby with her body, and he survived, suffering two broken fingers, while becoming an orphan.

Angelina Englisbee, 86, told her son she had to hang up because she was in the checkout line. She was speaking with him at the time on her cellphone, the very last time her family would hear her voice. In Ciudad Juarez, where Elsa Mendoza de la Mora lived with her husband and son, the El Diario newspaper reported that her husband and son waited for her in their car outside the Walmart when the shooting began....

In Ohio, 24-year-old Connor Betts killed nine people with an assault-type rifle, while wearing body armour and a mask, early Sunday in a nightlife area of the city. Police responded almost immediately to the shooting and stopped an even worse tragedy from taking even more lives when they shot the gunman dead. He had shot his sister to death, among the others, including 14 people wounded by bullets.

The Dayton police ended his rampage in about 30 seconds, according to Dayton Police Chief Richard Biehl, of a gunman who managed to get off 41 shots before he was shot dead in his tracks. "We have a lot of evidence still to go through. Just based on where we're at now, we are not seeing any indication of race being a motive", stated Chief Biehl.

Betts was studying psychology at a community college, working at a Chipotle restaurant. There seemed no reason that he be precluded from buying the assault-style weapon under American law. Once in his possession, the weapon had been modified, fitted with an extended drum magazine to hold 100 rounds. Sister Megan Betts, 22, arrived at the site together with her brother along with another person, separating before the rampage.

Strange, but Megan Betts, shot to death by her brother, will never be questioned that the assault weapon her brother carried hadn't been noticed in his possession either by her or the other person in the car that brought them to their destination. The third person, wounded, can perhaps clear up that mystery, unless it's no mystery that a young man arrive at a nightclub with an assault weapon in Dayton, Ohio.