Mom of alleged El Paso shooter called cops about gun before tragedy: report
The mother of the El Paso Walmart shooting suspect called police weeks before the massacre because she was worried about her son owning an AK-style assault rifle, lawyers for the family said Wednesday.
The mom wasn’t concerned that Patrick Crusius, 21, posed a threat but was troubled that he owned the weapon — given his age, maturity level and lack of experience handling such a firearm, attorneys Chris Ayres and R. Jack Ayres told CNN.
During the call, an Allen, Texas public safety officer told Crusius’ mom that her son was legally allowed to buy the weapon, the lawyers said.
The mom didn’t provide her name or her son’s name, they added.
It’s unclear if the weapon she was worried about is the same AK-style rifle Crusius allegedly used to kill 22 people and wound dozens of others Saturday at a packed Walmart.
The police department didn’t provide any reports documenting the mom’s call in response to a public records request about Crusius from the outlet.
The “entirety of our dealings with Mr. Crusius” consisted of three incidents, a false burglar alarm, a time when Crusius ran away from home but returned after 30 minutes and once when he was a passenger in a bus that had a minor accident, the cops said.
The attorneys said the call was simply “informational” since Crusius “was not a volatile, explosive, erratic behaving kid.”
“It’s not like alarm bells were going off,” said Chris Ayres.
Investigators believe Crusius posted a rambling, anti-immigrant screed online about 20 minutes before the shooting, which they are treating as a “domestic terrorist case.”
Prosecutors have announced that they will seek the death penalty for Crusius, who has been charged with capital murder.
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