Walmart shooting victims, survivors face gunman in | RSS.comWalmart shooting victims, survivors face gunman in | RSS.com
“I feel an empty space in my heart for him. But in those empty spaces, I still have room for forgiveness for you. At first, I was very angry at you. But God helped me to surpass this anger with forgiveness. I feel in my heart to hug you very tight, so you could feel my forgiveness, especially my loss.”
Diego: That was Yolanda Tinajero speaking. Her 60-year-old brother, Arturo Benavides, was murdered along with 22 others in the shooting on August 3, 2019, at a Walmart store near Cielo Vista Mall.
Moments after Tinajero spoke, Judge Sam Medrano asked her if she truly thought hugging the gunman who killed her brother would bring her peace. She said yes, crossed the courtroom and hugged Patrick Crusiuswho appeared unsure about how to handle the interaction.
Hours later, Adriana Zandri also was given permission to hug the man who murdered her husband, Ivan Filiberto Manzano.
Crusius avoided eye contact with both women during the hugs.
August 3, 2019, was the darkest day in El Paso’s history. The court cases ended this week when the gunman pleaded guilty in state court and was sentenced to multiple life terms. Almost three dozen people directly affected by the attack read statements in court about how the horrific assault affected them and their families.
A word that consistently came up this week during days of court hearings was “forgive.” Citing their Christian faith, Tinajero and others told Crusius they forgave him for the massacre he committed and the lives he stole.
Michelle Grady was shot four times that day and still suffers from numerous injuries related to the gunshot wounds. But Grady said being alive is a gift worth being thankful for. She referred to a “guardian angel” who saved her life when he found her near the store’s entrance and wrapped her wounds.
Michelle Grady: While I was out grocery shopping, I intended to stop and donate money to a group of childrens’ soccer team. On my way out the store, that is when the shots rang out. Chaos took over all the surrounding areas. As I was shot for the last time, I hit the ground, and one of the workers, a Mexican-American man, came out, at some point, hugged me, wrapped his clothing around all of my four wounds to help stop the bleeding, and stayed with me and gave me words of comfort although he didn’t have to.
I prayed on that day that God would forgive me of my sins, and that if it be His will, that I would continue to live, and my parents didn’t have to find out that I was murdered outside of a grocery store.
I think that the response to hate should always be love. Because we can’t control other people, but we can control how we react, and how we have compassion for those who are hurt.
Diego: Anger was also felt during victim impact statements. Luis Juarez Jr., whose 90-year-old father was the oldest victim of the shooting, rebuked the white supremacist ideology Crusius espoused and talked about his father, Luis Juarez Sr., a master welder who helped build El Paso’s convention center.
Luis Suarez Jr.: What you did was unforgivable. I don’t care what anybody says, “Oh, I forgive you.” No. I’m sorry, I can’t, can’t do it. We miss our father every day. He was a good man, a hard-working man.
Diego: Francisco Rodriguez is the father of Javier Amir Rodriguez, who was just 15 years old when Crusius gunned him down at the Walmart. He was the youngest victim of the shooting.
Francisco Rodriguez: My son was 15 years old at the time, he was pretty much a bystander, he just went down with his uncle to the bank.
Look at me. Look at my son. You had the balls to come down here and do what you wanted to do, right? Look at him. I’m only asking you two minutes. Two minutes of your time. You had over 10 hours to think about what you were going to do. Now, you can’t give me two minutes?
Thanks to you, now I go to the cemetery with my family on my son’s birthday. We take a cake, some ice cream. We’re down there singing “Happy Birthday.” Then we eat cake and ice cream. Thanks to you.
I don’t wish you bad. Your time will come when God says it’s your time. You’ll be accountable for your actions to Him.
Diego: Angela Hubbard was at the Walmart during the shooting, but she managed to escape unharmed after a young store employee alerted her to the shooter. She left through an emergency exit and dropped to the ground outside of the store and played dead. Soon, she came face-to-face with the gunman during his killing spree.
Angela Hubbard: I just kept saying to myself, “Hail Mary, full of grace” over and over. Then, I see Patrick Crusius coming out of the middle exit. I say to myself “Oh, God, I see the shooter.” He’s coming out of the Walmart. He was walking out of the middle entrance exit door with an AK-style rifle pointed straight up. My heart sank, because I thought, “That’s it, my life is over. I’m going to be murdered and I can’t escape.”
Patrick Crusius was walking with speed, confidence and determination as he walked out of the Walmart that morning. I saw you. He didn’t look scared or nervous to me.
Patrick Crusius, I fooled you. I tricked you. I was alive, playing dead. I could have been your 24th victim. You could have shot and murdered me. There I was on the ground, playing dead and praying. I’m one of the survivors that got away. I hope the thought that I survived upsets you. I survived, I’m here.”
Diego: Crusius largely stared straight ahead with no emotion as victims spent hours sharing their statements.
When victims, survivors and relatives addressed Crusius this week, it was likely the last time that they or anyone else in El Paso will see him in person. He had been locked up in Downtown El Paso since the shooting, but Crusius will now go serve a life sentence at a state penitentiary elsewhere in Texas.
The case is over, but questions that have persisted since August 2019 will remain. How did a mentally ill teenager maintain ownership of an assault rifle? How did someone fall so far into the darkest, most sinister corners of the internet that they could be motivated to massacre strangers?
The gunman’s defense lawyers have described Crusius as severely mentally ill suffering from schizoaffective disorder, which they said causes delusions and hallucinations that left him divorced from reality.
Luis Juarez’ sister, Margaret, dissected the flawed thinking of white supremacy in her statement. Others were skeptical about Crusius’ mental illness. But, as Crusius is sent to prison and disappears from public view, survivors, victims and their relatives, like Margaret Juarez, have made one thing clear: the cold-blooded mass killing of Latinos here did not break El Paso. Instead, it only unified the city and its people.
Margaret Juarez: “And the thing that you and other racist, cowardly terrorists will never take away is our resilience. So now, we, all these lovely people, are going to go out in that lovely day and enjoy the fuck out of our freedom. We’re going to enjoy the hell out of our freedom in our country.”
