FBI executed 3 search warrants in DFW area in El Paso mass shooting investigation

The FBI has executed three search warrants in the DFW area in its investigation into a man suspected of killing 20 people at an El Paso shopping center on Saturday.

At a press conference Sunday, FBI Special Agent in Charge Emerson Bowie said law enforcement in the Dallas-Fort Worth area were investigating Patrick Crusius, a 21-year-old from Allen, as the primary suspect.

Crusius was arrested after he surrendered to police and has been charged with capital murder. The shooting is also being investigated as possible domestic terrorism and a potential hate crime.

El Paso District Attorney Jaime Esparza said he will be seeking the death penalty.

“We are a very safe community, we pride ourselves on being safe, and certainly this community is rocked and shocked and saddened by what has happened here yesterday,” Esparza said.

John Bash, the U.S. attorney for the Western District of Texas, said federal authorities are considering federal firearm charges in addition to the federal hate crime charges.

“We’re also treating this as a domestic terrorism case, and we’re going to do what we do to terrorists in this country, which is deliver swift and certain justice,” he said.

Crusius’s last known address is listed in Allen, about 30 miles north of Dallas, according to public records.

Twenty people were killed and and another 26 were injured in Saturday’s shooting.

“There’s no words you can place to say something like that. You have to see it for yourself,” El Paso police chief Greg Allen said about the scene at the shopping center. “When I first got into this job, I never know there was an odor to blood. There is.”

This story was originally published August 4, 2019 at 11:48 AM.