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20 Dead In Texas Walmart Shooting

One suspect has been taken into custody, according to police.

Twenty people have been killed in a mass shooting at a Walmart store in El Paso, Texas, authorities said, and police have a 21-year-old male suspect in custody.

The Saturday morning massacre also injured 26 people, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said at a press conference.

“Texas grieves for the people of El Paso today,” Abbott said. “A day that would have been a normal day for someone to leisurely go shopping turned into one of the most deadly days in the history of Texas. Lives were taken who should still be with us today.”

Del Sol Medical Center spokesman Victor Guerrero told HuffPost the El Paso hospital has 11 patients from the shooting, nine of whom were in critical condition. The other two he listed as stable condition.

Police said blood donations are “needed urgently.”

FBI authorities stand outside near an El Paso Walmart that has left multiple people dead.
JOEL ANGEL JUAREZ via Getty Images
FBI authorities stand outside near an El Paso Walmart that has left multiple people dead.

Sgt. Robert Gomez of the El Paso Police Department at an earlier press briefing confirmed the arrest of the one male suspect. El Paso Mayor Dee Margo previously said three suspects had been taken into custody, but Gomez said police did not believe there “is anybody outstanding.”

The suspect has been identified by multiple outlets as 21-year-old Patrick Crusius, originally from Allen, Texas, a town near Dallas that’s some 650 miles east of El Paso.

KTSM-TV in El Paso showed a photo of what appears to be the shooter holding a long gun and entering the Walmart.

The El Paso Police Department responded at 10 a.m. Saturday to the area of the Cielo Vista Mall where reports came of the shooting.

Video posted on Facebook by a person claiming to be a witness shows a body lying on the floor of the Walmart with blood near its head. Parents can be seen shielding their children’s eyes as they rush them out of the store.

Another video posted to Twitter appears to show multiple bodies in the parking lot. A woman can be heard asking, “Who needs CPR?” The videos contain graphic images so HuffPost is not linking to them.

Other stores in the area were evacuated.

Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke, who had represented El Paso in Congress from 2013-19, said backstage at a forum for Democratic presidential candidates in Las Vegas that he would be returning home to El Paso.

“We know that there’s a lot of injury, a lot of suffering in El Paso right now. I’m incredibly sad,” O’Rourke told reporters, as he choked up. “It’s very hard to think about this. But I’ll tell you, El Paso is the strongest place in the world. This community is going to come together. I’m going back there right now, to be with my family and to be with my hometown.”

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