Six years ago, on this day, August 3rd 2019, another of the eco-fascist massacres that I fear we will see more of…
Crusius bought a semiautomatic rifle online and 1,000 rounds of hollow-point 39 mm shells. On Aug. 3, 2019, he got into his gray Honda Civic and drove nearly 10 hours toward El Paso, Texas. Entering the city, he turned into the Cielo Vista Walmart Supercenter parking lot. By some accounts, he wanted a snack, but after briefly going into the store filled with Hispanic shoppers, he returned to his car, posted a vitriolic 2,400-word manifesto to the extremist social media site 8chan and got the gun. He shot 45 people, ultimately killing 23, eight of them Mexican citizens. “This attack is a response to the Hispanic invasion of Texas,” Crusius wrote. “I am simply defending my country from cultural and ethnic replacement brought on by an invasion.”
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 411ppm. As of 2025, when this post was published, it is 430ppm. This matters because the more carbon dioxide in the air, the more heat gets trapped. The more heat, the more extreme weather events. You can make it more complicated than that if you want, but really, it’s not. Fwiw, I have a tattoo of the Keeling Curve on my left forearm.
The broader context was that settler colonialism requires racism – hatred, fear, supremacism. If you’re going to push people off land, you have to stop seeing them as people. This is not rocket science.
The specific context was that the climate issue had been deliberately polarised/politicised in the late 1980s and early 1990s, by “conservatives” seeking to maintain the status quo (which is, after all, what conservatives do). Alongside this, well, the Great Chain of Being/White Replacement Theory and So. Many. Guns.
What I think we can learn from this is that this is going to happen a lot more.
What happened next
From wikipedia
In 2023, Crusius pleaded guilty to 90 federal murder and hate crime charges,[21][22] and he was sentenced to 90 consecutive life sentences.[23]
In March 2025, El Paso County District Attorney James Montoya offered a plea deal on state charges, allowing Crusius to avoid the death penalty by pleading guilty in exchange for a life sentence without parole or appeal. This decision followed consultations with victims’ families, many of whom preferred a swift resolution.[24] Crusius pleaded guilty to the state charges on April 21, 2025, and was sentenced to life in prison without parole.[25]
Victims:
- Andre Anchondo, 23
- Jordan Anchondo, 24
- Arturo Benavides, 60
- Leonardo Campos, 41
- Angie Englisbee, 86
- Maria Flores, 77
- Raul Flores, 83
- Guillermo “Memo” Garcia, 36[a]
- Jorge Calvillo García, 61
- Adolfo Cerros Hernández, 68
- Alexander Gerhard Hoffman, 66
- David Johnson, 63
- Luis Alfonzo Juarez, 90
- Maria Eugenia Legarreta Rothe, 58
- Maribel (Campos) Loya, 56
- Ivan Filiberto Manzano, 46
- Elsa Mendoza Marquez, 57
- Gloria Irma Márquez, 61
- Margie Reckard, 63
- Sara Esther Regalado Moriel, 66
- Javier Rodriguez, 15
- Teresa Sanchez, 82
- Juan Velazquez, 77
- Garcia initially survived the shooting, but died on
April 26, 2020, as a result of his injuries.[42]
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.
Also on this day:
August 3, 1958 – under the pole goes the Nautilus – All Our Yesterdays
August 3, 1970 – Nixon warned about climate change and icecaps melting
August 3, 1988 – Exxon tries to downplay “the greenhouse effect.” Again.