EL PASO, TX (AP) — A Texan man pleaded guilty Wednesday to federal hate crime and gun charges in the 2019 racist attack on a Walmart in El Paso that Prosecutors say was preceded by the shooter posted a message online warning of a “Spanish Invasion”.

Patrick Crusius, 24, showed little emotion as he was shackled in an El Paso courtroom just a few miles from a store where he was accused of killing 23 people, including Mexican citizens, in one of the worst mass shootings in history. US history.

A verdict has not been set until the end of this year, but the US government had previously announced it would not seek the death penalty. Crusius has waived most of his rights to appeal a total of 90 federal charges, each of which US District Judge David Guaderrama said would be sentenced to life in prison.

“I plead guilty,” he said.

Crusius initially pleaded not guilty before federal prosecutors abolished the death penalty. However, he can still be sentenced to death on separate Texas murder charges, though it remains unclear when the case could go to trial.

Albert Hernandez, whose sister and brother-in-law were killed in the attack, was one of about 40 people who had close ties to the victims at the court gallery. He called Crusius a coward who tried to “save his own skin” by pleading guilty in federal court.

“This guy knew what he was doing. It was intentional,” Hernandez said of the shooting. He came here to take care of business.

Crusius turned himself in to police after the massacre, saying “I shot” and that, according to court records, he shot at the Mexicans. Prosecutors said he drove more than 10 hours from his hometown near Dallas to a predominantly Hispanic border town and published a document online shortly before the shooting saying it was “in response to a Hispanic invasion of Texas.” .

The shooting took place on August 3, 2019, during a busy weekend at a Walmart store that is usually popular with shoppers from Mexico and the United States. loved one offended.

Prosecutors released a detailed account of the attack during Wednesday’s plea hearing, describing how it began with a pedestrian being shot dead in a parking lot before Crusius, wearing headphones that muffled the sound of gunshots, opened fire on people at a fundraiser for football team.

When Crusius entered the store, nine people were cornered and shot dead in a jar near the entrance, prosecutors said. Among them were husband and wife Jordan and Andre Anchondo, whose young son survived with broken arm bones.

It’s also where the gunfight killed Margie Reckard, whose August 2019 funeral drew thousands of sympathizers from as far away as California and overseas in Mexico — after her husband announced he was single, he had almost no family left, and invited the whole world to attend.

The murder continued as Crusius fired his assault rifle down several aisles, prosecutors said. Leaving the Walmart, he fired at a passing car, killing an elderly man and injuring his wife.

Former El Paso Mayor Di Margo attended the plea hearing and called it “inside-out.”

“We have an evil white supremacist who has come forward and attacked us for who we are,” he said.

After the hearing, defense attorney Joe Spencer stated that Crusius wanted to take charge. “There are no winners in this case,” he said.

Prosecutors say Crusius gave his consent after he turned himself in on two videotapes of interrogations with detectives and the FBI on August 3 and provided two flash drives with his racist tapes and other recordings.

Crusius’ letters before the shooting echoed both the anti-immigration rhetoric of American politicians and the racist statements of other mass shooters in the US and abroad.

More than three years after the shooting, American politics continues to describe the “invasion” of the US-Mexico border. Critics condemned the characterization as anti-immigrant and dangerous in the aftermath of the El Paso attacks and other racially motivated attacks.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, recently used the word “invasion” as he authorized a series of tough immigration measures. In November, Abbott sent a letter to the state police and the Texas National Guard with the subject line “Defend Texas from Invasion.”

Abbott defended his statements by saying that he was referring to provisions included in the US Constitution. Some legal scholars have called this a misreading of the article.

“If this is not an invasion, then what is?” Abbott asked CNN’s Jake Tupper during an interview last month. “Think about the number of people crossing the border.”

The Voice of America, an immigration reform group, said it tracked more than 80 Republican candidates during last year’s midterm elections, which escalated what they called “invasion” and “replacement” plots.

“I think it creeps over the years,” said Zachary Muller, political director for VOA. “I would say there was a noticeable shift in 2021 as she moved from the fringes of the GOP to the mainstream of the GOP.”

A database of U.S. mass killings since 2006 compiled by the Associated Press, USA Today and Northeastern University shows that the number of deadly hate crime-related mass shootings has increased in recent years. Of the 13 known cases, the 2019 Walmart shooting was the deadliest. The database has tracked every mass murder – defined as four people, not counting the perpetrator – in the US since 2006.

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Weber reported from Austin, Texas. Associated Press contributors Acacia Coronado and Jake Blayberg of Dallas contributed to this report.