On the morning of Aug. 3, 2019, a 21-year-old white supremacist uploaded a document to the message board 8chan explaining why he was about to kill as many Mexican people as he could. “This attack is a response to the Hispanic invasion of Texas,” he stated. “They are the instigators, not me. I am simply defending my country from cultural and ethnic replacement brought on by the invasion.”
He had driven 10 hours from Allen to El Paso, Texas — the border city where 80% of the population is Hispanic — with an AK-47 and a thousand rounds of hollow-point ammunition. He parked at a Walmart, entered the store and opened fire, ultimately killing 22 people in what has been described as the deadliest anti-Latino hate crime in American history.
Among his victims was Luis Alfonso Juarez, 90, who was grocery shopping with his wife. “Don’t be afraid,” Juarez told her before bullets tore into both their bodies, ending his life and leaving his wife, who survived, suddenly without her partner of 70 years.