Summary
In the aftermath of two Texas tragedies, more details and more actions are expected. As always, you can follow the latest from reporters and analysts covering US gun control here. For now, here’s what’s happened so far today:
In the aftermath of a mass shooting where 8 people were killed at a shopping mall in Allen, Texas, on Saturday, authorities have not yet confirmed a motive. Mauricio Garcia, the 33 year-old suspected gunman who was killed on the scene by police, reportedly espoused right-wing extremism and white supremacy online and in a patch displayed on his chest.
The shooting was the second deadliest of 2023 during a time when the US is on pace to set a new record in mass shootings.
Texas lawmakers in the Republican-controlled state legislature voted to advance a bill to raise the minimum age for buying a semi-automatic weapon to 21.
Police in Brownsville identified the suspect in a separate incident where a car plowed into a group of people waiting at a bus stop outside a migrant shelter on Sunday morning.
During a Monday morning news conference, authorities named George Alvarez and accused him of killing eight people and injuring 10 others with his car. Alvarez, who attempted to flee but was held down at the scene, was booked on reckless driving. With bail set at $3.6m, he now faces additional charges.
Updated
As people across the US try to process yet another heartbreaking and gruesome tragedy, more have begun raising alarms about the images of the aftermath that surface online. Once shielded from easy access or public view, now videos and photos are shared across social media, creating more vicarious trauma and PTSD, even for those far from the affected communities.
“Millions of people being bombarded with videos of horribly mangled dead children when trying to get basic information,” the NBC reporter Ben Collins tweeted, “is going to give people the kind of PTSD we don’t have a name for yet.”
Millions of people being bombarded with videos of a horribly mangled dead children when trying to get basic information on this site is going to give people a kind of PTSD we don’t have a name for yet.
— Ben Collins (@oneunderscore__) May 7, 2023
Twitter has come under criticism for enabling users to spread graphic images, specifically after its shakeup in leadership, which left content moderators in shorter supply.
But according to the New York Times, the issue is a thorny one, and isn’t at all new:
Graphic content was never completely banned by Twitter, even before Mr. Musk took over. The platform, for instance, has allowed images of people killed or wounded in the war in Ukraine, arguing that they are newsworthy and informative. The company sometimes places warning labels or pop-ups on sensitive content, requiring that users opt in to see the imagery.
While many users clearly spread the images of the massacre, including of the dead attacker, for shock value, others retweeted them to underscore the horrors of gun violence. “The N.R.A.’s America,” one tweet read. “This isn’t going away,” said another.
Comparing content decisions to the ones long faced by news media, the Times highlighted the political or newsworthy importance some images or videos possess, and how tech companies are being thrust into a position of navigating the issues on an enormous scale, across millions of viewers.
But according to a UCLA professor, there are important distinctions.
Sarah T. Roberts, a professor at the University of California Los Angeles who studies content moderation, drew a distinction between editors at traditional media companies and social media platforms, which are not bound by the ethics that traditional journalists adhere to – including minimizing harm to the viewer and the friends and family of the people who were killed.
“I understand where people on social media are coming from who want to circulate these images in the hopes that it will make a change,” Ms. Roberts said. “But unfortunately, social media as a business is not set up to support that. What it’s set up to do is to profit from the circulation of these images.”
Updated
Details on Mauricio Garcia are still surfacing, but it is clear that he was quickly washed out of the military.
After entering the Army in 2008, he was enlisted for only three months of service and was terminated before completing initial entry training, according to Army Times.
Officials told the publication that Garcia did not complete his infantry training due to a mental health condition, and was given a discharge that “signifies neither honorable nor poor service”.
An Army official added Garcia was separated through a policy that allows commanders to terminate soldiers because of physical or mental conditions that interfere with their duties. The official did not specify what condition led to Garcia’s separation.”
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre emphasized the president’s calls for Congress to act on gun control legislation on Monday and highlighted various places – from schools to shopping malls – where mass shootings have taken a toll recently.
“This is a crisis,” she said, adding that more stringent rules would protect every day life. “It is a crisis that the Republicans in Congress are refusing to address.”
She also spoke to the named gunman’s uncovered social media presence, which suggests he might have connections to right-wing extremism. Officials have not yet confirmed a motive, but the Mauricio Garcia reportedly also wore an insignia associated with extremist groups.
“Broadly speaking, as it relates to the right-wing organization that he was connected to, or has been reported to be connected to, we have spoken out consistently about the concerning rise in hate-fueled violence in this country,” she said. “The president has talked about this in great length including in discussing how we need to restore the soul of this nation.”
Updated
Six victims of the Allen, Texas shooting are still in the hospital, as of Monday afternoon.
ABC News reports that three victims remain in critical condition and two are in fair condition.
An additional victim, being treated at the Medical City Children’s Hospital, is in good condition.
Updated
Victims of the fatal shooting in Allen, Texas are being identified, according to multiple reports.
Among those killed in what is the second-deadliest mass shooting this year are a pair of sisters who were in elementary school.
Daniela Mendoza, a fourth grader, and Sofia Mendoza, a second grader, both attended Cox Elementary which is in Wylie Independent School District, NBC News reported.
Their mother, Ilda Mendoza, remains in critical condition.
“Words cannot express the sadness we feel as we grieve the loss of our students. Our thoughts and prayers are with the Mendoza family, the families of the victims, and all those affected by this senseless tragedy,” wrote the district’s superintendent David Vinson in a letter to families.
Here’s Charlie Scudder for the Guardian, describing the intense gun culture in communities like Allen, Texas.
Four years ago, the city council governing Allen, Texas, was asked to approve construction of a large gun range in the town. Only one member of the council, Lauren Doherty, voted against it.
Doherty said that vote cost her seat on the municipal body when she ran for re-election two years later.
“My vote – and my voice – were one of the reasons that I had an opponent” who ultimately won the race, Doherty said Sunday.
She recalled her electoral defeat a day after a mass murderer shot eight people to death in her hometown before he was killed himself by a police officer.
Read the full article here.
Here’s video from the moment a Texas House committee voted to advance a bill to raise the minimum age from 18 to 21 for the general public being able to buy an assault rifle, from Moms Demand Action advocate Shannon Watts:
HUGE: After @MomsDemand volunteers and survivors - including families from Uvalde - showed up today at the statehouse, a *bipartisan* group of lawmakers voted to move legislation that would raise the age to purchase an assault weapon from 18 to 21. #txlege pic.twitter.com/1TogdzQTjI
— Shannon Watts (@shannonrwatts) May 8, 2023
US on track for record year of mass shootings, as Texas takes small step for safety
The United States is suffering mass shootings this year at a pace that means 2023 is already on track to become a record year for such killings – even as the Republican-controlled legislature of Texas took a small step towards greater gun safety laws.
The mass shooting in Allen, Texas, on Saturday was the second deadliest gun massacre of the year and just the latest in a string of such killings that are blighting 2023 and leaving many Americans in despair that action will be taken to stem the bloodshed.
The shootings are just becoming more and more frequent.
My colleague Andrew Witherspoon just made that graphic of the alarming data around mass shootings in the US.
Meanwhile, although a committee in the Texas House just voted to advance a bill to raise the minimum age from 18 to 21 for the general public being able to buy an assault rifle, it has little chance of being passed by the full legislature, let alone being signed into law by right-wing governor Greg Abbott.
In a surprise move days after the Allen mall shooting and hours before a key legislative deadline, a Texas House committee advanced a bill Monday that would raise the minimum age to purchase certain semi-automatic rifles.
The bill faces an uphill climb to becoming state law, but the vote marked a milestone for the proposal that relatives of Uvalde shooting victims have been pushing for months.
Several relatives of children who were killed in the Robb Elementary School shooting last year sobbed when the committee voted 8-5 to send the bill to the House floor.
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US president Joe Biden has repeatedly called on states and on the US Congress to pass laws not just raising the age for buying assault weapons but to ban the weapons for the general public overall.
In Texas, hardline Republican governor Greg Abbott talked a lot on Sunday about mental health problems and prayer but refuses to bend to the gun control argument.
On Sunday, the White House issued a statement from Biden that read, in part:
Yesterday, an assailant in tactical gear armed with an AR-15 style assault weapon gunned down innocent people in a shopping mall, and not for the first time. Such an attack is too shocking to be so familiar. And yet, American communities have suffered roughly 200 mass shootings already this year, according to leading counts. More than 14,000 of our fellow citizens have lost their lives, credible estimates show. The leading cause of death for American kids is gun violence.
Since I signed the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act into law and took two dozen executive actions to stem the tide of gun violence, we have made some progress. States are banning assault weapons, expanding red flag laws and more — but it’s not enough. We need more action, faster to save lives….
…Once again I ask Congress to send me a bill banning assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. Enacting universal background checks. Requiring safe storage. Ending immunity for gun manufacturers. I will sign it immediately. We need nothing less to keep our streets safe.”
In the Republican-controlled state legislature in Texas, lawmakers just voted in a committee to advance a bill to raise the minimum age for buying a semi-automatic weapon to 21.
BREAKING: The Texas House Select Committee on Community Safety has passed 8-5 the bill to raise to 21 the minimum age to purchase a semi-automatic rifle. #Uvalde families cry and clap in celebration. #txlrge pic.twitter.com/r4pc9gQc1t
— Sergio Martínez-Beltrán (@SergioMarBel) May 8, 2023
Democratic state senator Roland Gutierrez, who represents Uvalde, initiated numerous gun safety related bills in the senate, while the town’s representative in the House, Democrat Tracy King, had introduced the bill to raise the minimum age for buying an assault weapon and prohibit the sale of a firearm to someone who’s intoxicated or who has an active protective order, CBS reported.
Today’s vote doesn’t mean that the bill will survive votes in the full chamber or end up becoming law, however it’s a small but significant step forward for gun safety advocates.
NOW: Family members of Uvalde victims, @MomsDemand Action, Texas Impact, and @txgunsense are holding a press conference to demand the House Select Committee on Community Safety vote to bring HB 2744 to the House floor #txlege pic.twitter.com/ySh4azZpY5
— Niki Griswold (@nikigriswold) April 28, 2023
Updated
Texas has been particularly blighted by mass shootings, in a country awash in guns and with ever-more relaxed gun control laws in some states.
Here are some of the prominent recent mass shootings in the Lone Star state:
Earlier this month a man was arrested after shooting dead five of his neighbors in in the rural town of Cleveland.
In February, one person was killed and three wounded in a shooting at a shopping mall in El Paso, close to a Walmart where 23 were killed in a racist attack targeting Hispanic people in 2019.
It’s less than a year since 18 children and three adults were cut down by a gunman who entered an elementary school in Uvalde, also injuring many others. That massacre in Texas came just 10 days after a white man with racists beliefs shot 10 dead in an attack on a supermarket in Buffalo, in upstate New York.
A 17-month-old was among the victims of a shooting attack in the twin towns of Midland and Odessa, Texas, in September, 2019.
In August 2019, a man with anti-immigrant beliefs killed 23 people at a Walmart store in El Paso, the city at the western end of the Texas-Mexico border. He admitted he was targeting Mexicans in the attack.
Ten people were killed in a shooting at a high school in Santa Fe, Texas in 2018, where the suspect was 17 and a student at the school.
A total of 26 worshippers were shot dead in a modest church in the quiet little community of Sutherland Springs, Texas, in early November, 2017. It was just a month after a man killed 60 people and wounded more than 400 at a music event when he shot at them from a hotel window in Las Vegas, Nevada, in one of the worst such massacres America has seen.
The shooting in Allen was the second deadliest mass-shooting of 2023 and the country is on pace to set a new record in mass shootings.
In January, 11 people were gunned down in a massacre in Monterey Park, California.
The Washington Post reports today:
The mass killing Saturday at an outlet mall in the Dallas suburb of Allen, Tex., that left at least eight dead was the second-deadliest in the United States in 2023 — a year on pace to set a modern record.
So far this year, the country has recorded 22 mass killings — all involving guns — that collectively have resulted in at least 115 deaths, according to a database maintained by the Associated Press, USA Today and Northeastern University.
This is more than double the number of mass killings recorded by this point last year, which was eight. In all of 2022, there were a total of 36 mass killings by gunfire in the United States, which resulted in at least 186 deaths, according to the database. This was the highest number recorded since 2006, when data on such incidents started being tracked.
The Washington Post defines a mass killing as an event in which four or more people, not including the shooter, have been killed by gunfire. The death counts do not include the shooter.
James Alan Fox, a professor of criminology at Northeastern University and one of the experts behind the database tracking mass killings, said that 2023 is “the worst that we’ve seen at least since 2006.”
“And probably ever,” he said. “I’ve been studying this topic for 40 years, and this is worse.”
Updated
In Allen, Texas, on the outskirts of Dallas, the suspect in the mass shooting that was perpetrated there on Saturday, killing eight members of the public, reportedly served briefly in the US military but “was removed” over concerns about his mental health, CNN says.
The cable outlet is flashing headlines on the TV and has a story on its website to this effect, while pointing out that it has very little further detail at this point and has reached out to the Pentagon for a response.
The outlet cites a source familiar with the investigation.
The gunman in the Allen massacre was killed on the scene by a police officer and was later identified as Mauricio Garcia.
It’s obviously very noticeable that the suspect in both the Allen and Brownsville incidents at the weekend have Hispanic names. While the former, Garcia, involves unconfirmed reports of right-wing extremist beliefs, the latter suspect, who is still alive and is in custody, George Alvarez, reportedly shouted anti-immigrant slurs at people. Police have declined to validate reports of Alvarez making such comments and said on the topic of whether the crash was intentional that it had not ruled out this conclusion but that the investigation was continuing.
The police in Brownsville, south Texas, just now showed the public a mugshot of the suspect in the incident on Sunday morning where a car plowed into a group of people waiting at a bus stop outside a migrant shelter.
They also put up an image of a list of what they described as a long “rap sheet” – aka an extensive criminal history – associated with suspect George Alvarez, 34, who was a resident of Brownsville, located at the eastern end of the US-Mexico border. It included assault and burglary.
Alvarez has this morning been arraigned – brought before a court to face criminal charges – on eight counts of manslaughter and 10 counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. He’s being detained on bail of $3.6m.
Here’s the latest on the man that plowed through a group of migrants in Brownsville. 34-year-old George Alvarez is being charged with 8 counts of manslaughter & 10 counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. His bond was set at $3.6 million. Story coming up on @KHOU noon. pic.twitter.com/8iWmBL7e6e
— Anayeli Ruiz KHOU (@AnayeliNews) May 8, 2023
Suspect in Brownsville incident named by police
At a press conference in Brownsville going on now, police chief Felix Sauceda has named the suspect in the fatal car incident on Sunday as George Alvarez, 34, who was a local resident.
He was initially booked with reckless driving but faces additional charges, including manslaughter.
Sauceda said he has not ruled out whether the crash was intentional and the investigation in ongoing. He said he could not validate reports that the suspect was heard making anti-immigrant statements prior to the crash.
The police chief said that the suspect attempted to flee the scene after the crash and was held down by witnesses.
Many of the victims were Venezuelan migrants. Sauceda said the grey SUV went through a red light and then went out of control and flipped over, then struck 18 people. Eight are dead, 10 injured. All the victims were men.
It’s a very short presser and it’s wrapping up now, just a few minutes after it started.
Updated
Texas tragedies raise questions about mass killings, political violence
Many developments are expected today in the twin tragedies that caused mayhem and misery in Texas over the weekend and raised questions over the frequency of mass killings in America, including via gun violence and politically-motivated aggression.
There have been no motives officially disclosed by authorities yet in Saturday’s mass shooting in Allen, near Dallas, where a gunman killed eight and was then shot dead. And in a car crash in Brownsville, south Texas on Sunday, where a vehicle plowed into people outside a migrant shelter.
Authorities in Brownsville have not yet even discussed whether the car was deliberately driven into migrants or not, in a horrific incident that also killed eight people.
But early reports have noted that the gunman in Allen appears to have links and sympathies with right wing, white supremacist beliefs. And witnesses to the tragedy in Brownsville had said they heard the driver of the vehicle – who has been detained – was shouting anti-immigrant messages prior to the crash.
Mass shootings are increasing at a fast pace this year, even compared with already-high figures previously. And concerns are rising about aggrieved people taking out their anger in acts of lethal violence or vigilantism.
Texas has had a string of mass shootings in recent years, more details to come.
And the latest tragedies came less than a week after a Black man was killed when a passenger on an underground train in New York City put him in a chokehold after he was demanding help from the public while potentially suffering a mental health breakdown.
Mayhem in Texas puts harsh spotlight on mass killings
Hello, Guardian US live blog readers, there is much developing news out of Texas in the aftermath of two tragedies in the state over the weekend – a mass shooting near Dallas on Saturday and an incident on Sunday at the eastern end of the US-Mexico border, where a man crashed a vehicle into people outside of an overnight shelter housing a growing migrant population, most fleeing crises in their home countries in Central and South America, Haiti and parts of Africa. We’ll bring you the updates live. Meanwhile, our US politics live blog with Chris Stein is up and running separately and can be found here.
Here’s what’s developing:
A man is reported to be facing charges in Brownsville, Texas, close to where the US-Mexico border meets the Gulf of Mexico, in connection with the horrific incident on Sunday morning where an SUV plowed into people at a bus stop outside a migrant shelter, killing eight and wounding 10 more.
Authorities will shortly hold a press conference in the border city. The victims in that tragedy have not yet been named but at least some were Venezuelan migrants and witnesses have reported the suspect shouting anti-immigrant slurs.
The suspect’s identity has not yet been shared by authorities.
Meanwhile, almost 600 miles north of Brownsville, in Allen, on the outskirts of Dallas, a shaken community is trying to come to terms with the aftermath of a mass shooting at a shopping mall on Saturday, where a gunman killed eight people before being shot dead by a law enforcement officer.
The gunman in Allen reportedly had ties to white supremacy. The identity of most of the victims of this latest massacre have not yet been released, although at least one was of Indian nationality.
