The man who fatally shot 23 people and wounded 22 others at an El Paso Walmart in 2019 believed he was acting at the direction of President Donald Trump, his defense lawyer told El Paso Matters.
“He thought he had to stop the invasion because that’s what his president was telling him, which is just not rational,” defense attorney Joe Spencer said in his first extended interview about the mass shooting that the shooter said was meant to stop “the Hispanic invasion of Texas.”
“He thought, if he doesn’t do it, then nobody’s going to do it,” Spencer said. “He’s got to start.”
The White House did not respond to multiple requests for comment from El Paso Matters. On August 5, 2019, two days after the El Paso shooting, Trump condemned the attack and the motives behind it: “The shooter in El Paso posted a manifesto online consumed by racist hate. In one voice, our nation must condemn racism, bigotry and white supremacy. These sinister ideologies must be defeated. Hate has no place in America.”
Trump visited El Paso on August 7, ignoring pleas from much of El Paso’s elected leadership that he stay away because they felt his rhetoric may have played a role in the shooting.
Although numerous Trump critics said his constant anti-immigration rhetoric played a role in the El Paso shooting — an accusation Trump supporters have denied — the shooter and his defense team have not previously addressed whether Trump’s words played a role in motivating him.
The shooter, now 26, is expected to plead guilty April 21 to state charges of capital murder and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. District Attorney James Montoya announced on March 25 that state prosecutors would no longer seek the death penalty, meaning the shooter will be sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole. He was sentenced to 90 consecutive life terms in 2023 after pleading guilty to federal weapons and hate crime charges.
Spencer has not made extensive public comments on the state case outside of the courtroom, in part because of directives issued by federal and state judges. He agreed to an interview with El Paso Matters on March 25, after 409th District Judge Sam Medrano dissolved a gag order he had put in place in 2022.
In the interview, Spencer detailed the shooter’s mental health history — he repeatedly said his client had “a broken brain” — and the man’s deepening spiral into extremist white nationalist websites such as 4Chan and 8Chan in 2018 and 2019. He said the man has a history of mental illness dating to childhood and has been diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder, an illness characterized by auditory and visual hallucinations.
Spencer said the shooter told him that a key event leading to the murderous rampage in El Paso occurred in May 2019 in Panama City Beach, Florida, when Trump spoke at a rally.
“I mean, you have 15,000 people marching up and you have hundreds and hundreds of people, and you have two or three border security people that are brave and great,” Trump said, then added falsely that Border Patrol agents weren’t allowed to use weapons.
“But how do you stop these people?” Trump said.
“Shoot them,” someone in the audience shouted, drawing laughter from the crowd and a smile from the president.
“That’s only in the (Florida) Panhandle you can get away with that statement,” Trump said while shaking his head. “Only in the Panhandle.”
The shooter said he saw video of that Trump rally and was motivated to act, Spencer said. In June 2019, a month after the rally, the man purchased a semiautomatic rifle online and had it delivered to a gun dealer in his hometown of Allen, Texas, near Dallas, according to court records.
The manifesto
On Aug. 3, 2019, the man drove 10 hours from Allen to El Paso and attacked the Walmart with the semiautomatic rifle, records show.
When you’re a person with a “broken brain” hearing comments like those from Trump, “you think you’re getting direction from your commander in chief that you’ve got to stop the invasion,” Spencer said.
Christine Reyna, a psychology professor at DePaul University in Chicago who researches white nationalist extremism, said desensitizing or dehumanizing rhetoric — especially from authority figures — can inspire violence in isolated, vulnerable young people undergoing radicalization online, regardless of their mental health. She said mental illness is not a contributor to most acts of extremist violence.
“That vulnerability can make a person desperate for a last grand act or an act of glory or an act of heroism in their mind,” Reyna said. In the shooter’s case, “if he feels like, ‘I could be this noble warrior in this cause to save America that the president is calling for,’ he may be just vulnerable enough.”
In his “manifesto” posted on the extremist chat forum 8Chan shortly before the attack, the shooter said people would try to link Trump to the attack, but denied that was the case.
“I am putting this here because some people will blame the president or certain presidential candidates for the attack. This is not the case,” he wrote. “I know that the media will probably call me a white supremacist anyway and blame Trump’s rhetoric. The media is infamous for fake news. Their reaction to this attack will likely just confirm that.”
Spencer said he believes his client compiled the manifesto largely by copying and pasting text from other sources. But he said the shooter resisted answering his questions about the manifesto, including Trump’s impact on his beliefs and actions.
“He was not comfortable going there,” Spencer said. “I remember at one point I even suggested, ‘You know, we may have to subpoena Trump,’ and boy, he did not like that at all. So I left that subject matter alone. I said we’ll deal with that at another time if we ever have to.”
Spencer said the shooter sometimes shapes his statements out of concern for what people might think of him. For example, he would answer mental health questions from clinicians at the El Paso County jail differently from what he told defense psychiatrists and psychologists.
When Spencer asked the man why he denied having mental health symptoms to the clinicians, he replied, according to Spencer, “Well, I don’t want them to think I’m crazy.”
The impact of words
Spencer said the influence of extremist rhetoric, and Trump’s frequent description of unauthorized border crossings as an “invasion,” don’t excuse the shooter’s culpability in mass murder.
But he said the El Paso shooting is a painful reminder that political speech can lead to violent consequences, and he believes Trump bears responsibility in the shooting.
“I absolutely believe that words matter, and especially someone who’s a… president of the United States,” Spencer said. “When he makes a statement like that, he should be very careful of how it’s going to be received, not only by those of us that are rational, but by those of us that are not, that think that this is a message from the president.”
Spencer is a longtime donor to Democratic political candidates, especially in El Paso judicial races. He said his views on Trump’s responsibility aren’t shaped by partisan beliefs.
“I am a Democrat, but I just follow the evidence,” he said.
Reyna, the DePaul psychology professor who researches white nationalism, said what was viewed in 2019 as extremist rhetoric on immigration has become more mainstream in conservative politics and media. She pointed to the “great replacement theory,” which holds that malign forces are bringing immigrants into the United States and other Western countries to replace white people.
The El Paso shooter invoked the great replacement — a common trope in 2019 in the darkest corners of the internet — in his manifesto. In the years since the attack, the conspiracy theory has been increasingly prominent among conservative media figures like Tucker Carlson, and among some right-wing politicians, Reyna said.
“The idea of the great replacement becomes much more mainstream, and that’s extremely dangerous,” she said.
Dehumanization of certain groups has long been a tool used by authoritarian governments, she said, and that approach resonates with white nationalist extremists.
“When you dehumanize the target, what you do is you exclude them from consideration. They do not deserve your moral care,” Reyna said. “And then, you harm them as existential threats.”
Increasing and normalizing anti-immigrant rhetoric that seemed extreme when used by the shooter before the attack increases the risk of further violence on immigrant and Hispanic communities, she said. Potential white nationalist terrorists are further emboldened by Trump’s pardons for people who participated in the January 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
“Because what that signal is, is that if you commit violence on my behalf, you’re going to get a pass,” Reyna said.
As part of her research, Reyna monitors online conversations among white nationalists, where the shooter is frequently invoked.
“He’s one of the big heroes now,” Reyna said. “Then the question is, who’s going to be the next person to be the next hero. And that’s what’s frightening.”
