The death toll from a mass shooting last August at an El Paso,
Texas,
Walmart store has climbed to 23 after the last victim left hospitalized
from the rampage succumbed to his injuries over the weekend, the
hospital said on Sunday.
“After a nearly nine-month fight, our
hearts are heavy as we report Guillermo 'Memo' Garcia, our last
remaining patient being treated from the El Paso shooting, has passed
away,” David Shimp, chief executive of Del Sol Medical Center in El
Paso, said in a statement.
Garcia was a youth soccer coach who was
on a fundraising event with his team outside the store on the morning
of Aug. 3, 2019, when a man opened fire on shoppers with an AK-47 rifle
in a massacre prosecutors have branded an anti-Hispanic hate crime.
About
four dozen people were struck by gunfire, and 20 were killed outright.
Two more victims died of their wounds two days later.
Garcia had
remained hospitalized since the shooting, undergoing several surgeries
and spending almost nine months in intensive care before he died on
Saturday night. He is survived by his wife, Jessica Coca Garcia, who was
also injured in the shooting, and two children.
The accused gunman, 21-year-old Patrick Crusius, who police said drove 11 hours from his hometown in the
Dallas suburb
of Allen, Texas, to commit the slayings, remains in custody charged
with capital murder and federal hate crimes. He has pleaded not guilty
in both cases.
Prosecutors said Crusius deliberately targeted
people of Mexican heritage in the massacre, citing an anti-immigrant
manifesto he allegedly posted online calling the attack "a response to
the Hispanic invasion of Texas."
The assault in the Texas border
city was followed just 13 hours later by a mass shooting in Dayton,
Ohio, where a gunman killed nine people and wounded 27 others before he
was shot dead by police.
The back-to-back massacres sparked a
political outcry, with El Paso native and then-Democratic Party
presidential candidate Beto O'Rourke demanding the mandatory
confiscation of the assault-style rifles often used in mass shootings.
The
El Paso shooting also prompted leading Texas Republicans including
Governor Greg Abbott and Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick to retreat
somewhat on their staunch defense of gun rights.
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